Commodore gets ‘new’ lunchroom

Published 7:00 pm Wednesday, May 4, 2005

A rundown, disused space is transformed for students who’ve been eating in the hallway.

It was a place people avoided. A place Bainbridge school officials viewed as “dreadful, dark and dreary,” filled with old gym lockers and grimy bathrooms, neither of which had been used in years.

Now gutted and remodeled, the space has been transformed into the Commons at Commodore, a light, bright place for students at Com­modore Options School to gather for lunch, assemblies, graduations, indoor recess, concerts and classes.

“It’s gorgeous,” said school board president Susan Sivitz. “It’s light and airy and spacious, and it’s just fabulous that the kids at Commodore will have a community space once again.”

Students in the Commodore building have been eating their lunches in the hallway for two years, ever since the leaking, decrepit and heavily used old commons was torn down.

“We’re very excited about having a community space back,” said Catherine Camp, principal of Commodore Options School. “We’ll have the opportunity now to meet as a whole school, to hold community events, to showcase the work of students – let alone getting out of the hallway to eat lunch.”

Construction on the $900,000 project, paid for with the district’s capital fund balance, got under way in January and is set to be completed later this week. The 6,000-square-foot space features a lunchroom with serving kitchen that seats 300, and two classrooms with a folding partition in between.

“It’s a space designed for multiple uses, so it can serve the district in a variety of ways,” said Tamela Van Winkle, the school district’s project director. “Because it is adjacent to the gym and offers plenty of parking, we think there will be plenty of opportunities for community use as well.”

The lunchroom features patterned flooring in an attractive, industrial strength linoleum product that is also used as wainscoting on the lower part of the walls. The classrooms will be carpeted.

While the bones of the space remained the same, the low ceilings were raised and the skylights from the original structure were integrated into the new design. The ceilings also sport “wood clouds” which help camouflage the mechanical elements in that space, and light green acoustical tiles on the walls add a dash of color as well as absorbing sound.

“I like to say that lovely costs the same as ugly,” Van Winkle said as she toured the space. “If you make appropriate choices for color and design, it can be cost effective and attractive.”

Van Winkle chose a color scheme of pale blues, grays and burgundy for the place, inspired by a mural that was commissioned in the 1940s, featuring Commodore Bainbridge and the USS Bainbridge. The mural is currently being restored.

The inspiration for the remodel came several years ago, after the school board rejected new construction as too expensive.

One day, as school board members Sivitz and Cheryl Dale were walking past the old locker rooms, Sivitz wondered why the space couldn’t be converted into something useful.

Dale thought the idea had merit, and other school officials, including Camp and Van Winkle, thought so too. With board approval, bids were sought and the work got underway.

“This is a real example of the district using due diligence to provide a space with a conservative budget in mind,” Van Winkle said. “Improvements like this really honor the taxpayers’ investment.”