SOUTH WHITEHALL, Pa.— A planned operations center for Parkland School District will have a bigger parking lot if the South Whitehall Planning Commission's recommendation for approval moves forward.
In a nearly three-hour meeting Thursday, planners without deliberation unanimously recommended approving plans for the bigger parking lot.
Parkland Superintendent Mark Madson said the plan next will go before South Whitehall Township supervisors, who meet at 7 p.m. Nov. 20.
The operations center, being built at 2619 Stadium Drive, across from Orefield Middle School, is set to include the district's maintenance and custodial services, food services division, safety and security division and technology department.
"Curriculum will be able to work side by side with special education, and so on. So functionally, it makes a lot of sense,"
Before the new center, operations for the Parkland School District largely were based in the Troxell building, which was a middle school from the 1920s until 1999, at 1210 Springhouse Road.
The district had estimated completionby the end of 2024 — but there was no update Thursday on the current timeline.
Madsen said previously that a benefit of the new center was consolidation.
"Right now, we have three different spaces" for operations, Madson said. "This will consolidate us into two.
"Curriculum will be able to work side by side with special education, and so on. So functionally, it makes a lot of sense."
