From Obsolete to State of the Art

"We're honoring the past and celebrating the future," said Paul Bradshaw, the architect for Sousa.

Allen Y. Lew, executive director of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, said the upgrades have made the schools better than when they originally opened. "The quality is raised, the bar is raised," he said. Lew oversaw construction of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and Nationals Park.

Hardy Middle School, at 1819 35th St. NW in Georgetown, began nearby 80 years ago as an elementary school. It moved to its current location, a former junior high, and was converted into a middle school in 1974, a few years before President Jimmy Carter's daughter, Amy, enrolled there.

Patrick Pope, who has been Hardy's principal for 10 years, said the building deteriorated from lack of maintenance. The school, he said, had electrical and plumbing problems and leaks from the roof that sometimes flooded the gym. It also lacked air conditioning. "It was not a positive environment at all," he said.

Renovations began in December 2005. The original plan was for students to remain in the building during construction. But work crews cut phone and electrical lines as well as pipes, nearly causing a flood. After that, Pope said, he lobbied to move out of the building. The school was relocated to the Hamilton Center, a vacant special education school in Northeast.

After the move, enrollment dropped from 420 to 320. In October, on his first day on the job, Lew fired the contractors, blaming them for putting the project a year behind schedule and $12 million over budget.

The new contractors have restored the historic vestibule and ornamental plaster on the walls in the corridors. The $48.5 million project also included installing elevators, enlarging the gym, adding science and art labs and increasing the library by 30 percent.

"I've told everyone, if you were in the old building, when you enter the new building you won't recognize where you are," Pope said, adding that he expects the enrollment to reach its 550 capacity by next year. "It's going to be a spectacular building."

Closed in 2002, Phelps High School, at 704 26th St. NE, has been resurrected with a $63.8 million renovation. Phelps opened in the 1930s as a vocational education school for black students, offering training in upholstery, plumbing, masonry, horticulture and other trades. In its new incarnation, the school will offer training in the construction trades as well as a college preparatory program focusing on architecture.

"I felt playing with dirt was the dumbest thing. But I learned if all else failed, I could go into landscaping," said D.C. Council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large), who took horticulture classes at Phelps in the 1980s.

"If you don't go to college, you should graduate with a skill," said Brown, who introduced legislation that financed the school's renovation, aimed at preparing young people for jobs in the construction industry.

Work includes dramatic archways and atria and a greenhouse with computer-controlled watering systems and shades. The building also uses wind turbines for power, cisterns to collect rainwater and solar panels to reheat water. It has exposed pipes, beams and electrical systems as educational tools to teach students how the school was constructed.

"The guts of the building are supposed to show you, instead of hide from you, what is going on in the building," said Edwin R. Schmidt, one of the architects.