Six years after it closed and turned into an eyesore, Broadmoor Middle School is on track to be converted into a place for esports and athletic events for elementary school children.
It is the latest in a series of proposed reuses for the former neighborhood middle school in Baton Rouge. This redevelopment is estimated to cost as much as $15 million, with a construction budget of $11 million. A final vote of the East Baton Rouge school board is planned for March 20.
“We want to ensure that we have additional space, a state-of-the-art space, that we can show our community the investment we are making in our athletic programming,†said LaMont Cole, superintendent of the East Baton Rouge Parish public schools.
How this proposal for Broadmoor Middle came about is in part a cautionary tale for what can happen when you close a school in a district that has been steadily shedding students over the years.
The school system is poised to close more schools in the coming weeks. On Wednesday, it held the first of three community meetings asking residents for help in shaping a consolidation, or “alignment,†plan that could end with the closing of multiple low-enrollment schools. The district has almost 40,000 students, but has space for about 60,000.Â
The school board on Thursday .
The plan calls for demolishing part of the campus, shrinking it from about 86,500 square feet of indoor space to just 30,000 square feet.
The proposal follows an upsurge in local interest in esports teams, which the district launched in 2021. Such sports integrate competitive video gaming with educational settings.
The Broadmoor Middle building would have an arena and a multipurpose gym to host regular tournaments for the more than 50 esports teams in the district. These tournaments are now held in the district’s professional development center, but it lacks room to meet the growing demand.
The upgrades at the former middle school building would set it up for robotics competitions, drones, video production and a variety of other science and technology-oriented activities.
The new complex also would offer a place for elementary school athletic teams to compete. Those sports include basketball, volleyball and track and field. Many elementary schools lack such facilities.
In addition, the new complex would house a handful of administrative offices now located in sites in poor condition elsewhere in town.
Broadmoor Middle was closed in 2019 due to declining enrollment. When its doors were locked, the middle school had roughly 375 students, but was operating in a building built to educate as many as 800.
East Baton Rouge schools Superintendent Cole has promised in the future the school system will not let school buildings sit vacant for years. He has proposed establishing a maximum amount of time a closed school can sit empty or unused before being put to another use.
Broadmoor Middle has not lacked for plans to revive the building.
The first proposal was to make it the new home of BR FLAIM — short for Baton Rouge Foreign Language Academic Immersion Magnet. The proposal was shelved, after parents at the A-rated magnet school were divided on the idea. A total of $15 million was set aside to upgrade the building, but it was unclear what kind of school it would be.
In fall 2021, then Superintendent Sito Narcisse persuaded the school board to turn Broadmoor Middle into an arts conservatory. The new school was supposed to train students for possible careers in theater, instrumental music, vocal music, dance, visual arts, media and graphic arts.
Cost projections, though, came in well above the $15 million in available funding, so the project was scrapped at the Broadmoor site. Costs increased partly because of inflation, but also due to deterioration and vandalism of the building during the years since it was shuttered.
The arts conservatory is still in development, but school leaders have yet to settle on a new home for it.
