Northwood will build a new 7,000-square-foot practice gym, funded through IUSD’s Measure E program, with construction scheduled to begin in early June after final exams and continue until the spring of 2027.
Attached to Northwood’s current gym, the new gym will require the demolition of one of Northwood’s outdoor basketball courts. The new gym will include an indoor basketball court, storage spaces, badminton equipment, a wrestling facility and space for P.E. classes. Because there will be no bleachers, the gym will not be used for official matches.
IUSD will allocate the remaining $9.7 million out of Northwood’s initial $13.5 million Measure E budget for the gym’s construction, according to Kelvin Okino, IUSD’s executive director of facilities planning and construction. Measure E, which was voted on by Irvine residents in 2016, is meant to update the district’s older schools to the same standards as its newer campuses. As part of the measure, Northwood received a new synthetic track and turf field in 2018.
“One of the criteria that my department establishes is trying to create equity amongst the high schools. Most other gyms have three practices, actually up to four in some cases,” Okino said. “We are also doing American Disability Act upgrades, which means the restrooms will get upgraded—the parking lots [and] sidewalks [too]—and then, there’ll be a custodial office and closet, so we can make sure our custodian staff can clean up the gym.”
Starting May 4, both of Northwood’s outdoor basketball courts, surrounding dirt and parking lots will be fenced off for construction. According to assistant principal Alissa Changala, demolition will not occur during the AP weeks, and will occur closer to June. During construction, students can still access the track by walking between the tiered tennis courts. Students and staff will not be able to walk along the outdoor basketball courts nor access the outdoor tennis courts, bike racks or parking along the exit route. However, the main gym will remain available for students to use.
Additionally, the district is looking into the “potential modernization” of Northwood’s campus, including a renovation of the theater, according to Okino, although such changes would fall outside the scope of Measure E. It is not clear what this will look like.
With the new gym, athletics teams that share the gym—such as girls and boys volleyball and girls and boys basketball—will both be able to practice in their own space.
“It would be a great change for our school and benefit our sports programs a lot because I know that a lot of practices and games had to be rescheduled because other sports had conflicts,” JV girls basketball point guard sophomore Zainab Quraishi said. “By making a new gym, it’ll allow different sports to get more time to practice and play games.”
