School district hopes to convert marshmallow plant to service center

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2002 | 9:27 a.m.

The Clark County School Board will vote Thursday on whether to approve the $5.3 million purchase of the former Kidd marshmallow factory in Henderson, which would be converted into a regional service center.

The purchase of the 18-acre factory north of Interstate 215 near Gibson Road is being proposed as part of the Clark County School District's support facilities master plan.

With new schools breaking ground nearly every month, regional operations centers will be necessary to keep campuses up and running, district officials said. District demographers estimate that student enrollment, currently at a quarter-million, could top 400,000 in the next 10 years.

The School Board in May approved more than $9 million to build a new curriculum and professional development center on Pecos Road north of Flamingo Road, a project that will consolidate several departments and hundreds of employees currently scattered around the Las Vegas Valley.

While it would cost an additional $6.5 million to fully renovate the site, workers could immediately begin using the property to store equipment and school buses, said Patrick Herron, assistant superintendent of the district's facilities division.

Consolidating maintenance, special projects and renovation operations into one regional service center would free space at the district's Education Center for other departments currently using rented facilities, Herron said.

The redevelopment at the marshmallow factory, which closed last year, could save the district as much as $20 million over the next 10 years, district officials said.

Additional savings would come through increased worker productivity, district officials said.

"The beauty of the plan is that it eliminates what we call windshield time," said Walt Rulffes, deputy superintendent of operations for the district. "Our employees will be able to put in a full eight hours on the job, instead of having to waste time driving between regions."

The district has come up with another way to save on drive time -- mobile trailers full of tools and supplies that can be trucked from one school construction site to another. In addition to the nine new schools opening later this month, district workers are busy remodeling and updating other campuses, Rulffes said.