Class & Community
Learning Center meets needs of Ellet middle school students, surrounding neighborhoods

By Mark Watt 

Three years ago, when Akron Public Schools began plans to replace Ellet’s outdated Hyre Middle School with a new facility, the school’s principal Cynthia Wilhite had one major request for the design team: make “a sophisticated, classy building that looks like it could fit into the Western Reserve.” After a $19 million construction project, that goal has been achieved.

This fall, nearly 800 middle students walked through the doors at the newly built Robert G. Hyre Community Learning Center (CLC) at 2385 Wedgewood Drive in Akron’s Ellet neighborhood to start the 2011/2012 school year. The two-story, 131,000-square-foot structure provides the school district with a facility that should last for decades and appropriately boasts a tasteful, timeless design, says Wilhite, who helped lead a planning process for the school along with numerous other individuals at Akron Public Schools.

“The community here is very traditional,” Wilhite says, and school officials wanted that mindset to be reflected in the building’s architecture.

Designed by TC Architects, the U-shaped school meets that objective, commanding a stately presence with traditional architectural elements – detailed red brick, low gabled rooflines and decorative stone coursings and caps – while incorporating spacious, modern learning areas to accommodate today’s technology and security needs.

“The community loves it, the teachers love it and the students love it,” Wilhite says. “We couldn’t ask for anything more.”

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