St. Joseph School - Bryan, TX
By: Jennifer Walker-Journey

Residents of Bryan, Texas, have a saying: They are 100 miles from everywhere – 100 miles from Houston, 100 miles from Waco, 100 miles from Austin. The town shares a border with College Station, home of Texas A&M, and together they are referred to as the Bryan-College Station metropolitan area with a population of nearly 200,000. With five parishes in the two-city area, only one Catholic school, St. Joseph's, serves the 70-mile radius.

St. Joseph's School was established in 1894 as K-8 school, and, in 1997, the school began adding a grade of high school each year until it served the full kindergarten through 12th grade. In the early 2000s, the school started a pre-kindergarten program.

For much of its long history, St. Joseph's School was housed in a building next to the church. There was no doubt the school was growing out of its space, and beginning in 1988, the church purchased the historic Travis School from the City of Bryan for its elementary students and purchased a neighboring Baptist church for its high school in 2003.

The old Travis School was a two-story, 21,000-square-foot building. It had a rich history of its own, dating back to 1929. Teachers and staff made do with the limited space and aging infrastructure, but there were issues. Specialized teachers for art and music didn't even have rooms of their own, having to visit the students' classrooms.

Perhaps the most pressing issue was that of safety. With no main entrance, most visitors entered the school through a side door, which required them to walk past a bathroom and a classroom before arriving at the office.

When St. Joseph's had the financial resources to take on a construction and renovation of its old elementary school building, it turned to The Arkitex Studio, Inc., a firm located in Bryan.

The school expressed its need for a new wing that would also house a multi-purpose room for general assemblies, P.E. classes, and after-hour church-related functions, according to Mike Record, AIA with Arkitex. The new wing would also house administrative offices, five classrooms, and a servery. The plans included converting the existing gymnasium to a cafeteria and adding handicap-accessible connections to the old gym/new cafeteria that would also provide access to the outdoor playground. The project also included the demolition of the existing servery and classrooms, which were in poor condition.

The project would add an additional 11,180 square feet to the campus. But, most importantly, it would solve the most pressing issue – safety. A new entry to the building was created and the administrative offices were positioned right inside the main doors, making the office the first stop for visitors. A long portion of the entrance was also covered, creating a new drop-off area to keep students off the streets.

The semi-circular drive leading up to the new entrance moved cars off the street, as well, which was a more neighborhood-friendly move, since the school's front entrance is on a house-lined street. The school also purchased a lot across the street, allowing the existing gravel parking lot to be expanded and paved.

For the new building's exterior, Record used a light-toned, blended brick to complement the slightly darker, textured brick on the existing building. To help hold down costs, Record says he used brick patterns to emulate cast stone on the original building and used a similar style low slope roof on the building. For the new covered drop-off and the raised foyer roofs, he used standing seam metal.

On the interior, vinyl tile patterns and few accent colors keep the palate conservative so that, per the school's request, the students' art and decorations would stand out on the walls. 

Oftentimes, renovating old buildings can lead to obstacles, and the old Travis School was no exception, Record said.

"First, the finished floor of the existing building was a few inches lower than what we thought.  Because we were making a physical connection between the two with a ramp, we had to move the new building a few feet away from the existing in order to keep handicap accessibility," he said. "The other challenge that we had was a concealed condition. The existing building was thought to be solid masonry. When they were cutting the brick and block out to make way for a new doorway, they found a structural steel column buried in the masonry. As a result, we revised the double doors into a large single door."

Despite the challenges, the construction and renovation were completed within 12 months. The end result is a building with plenty of space and much-needed heightened security.

The Arkitex Studio has the staffing depth to provide timely design solutions for a wide variety of project types and sizes, www.arkitex.com.