Southside Early Childhood Center Celebrates Grand Openning

Ribbon Cutting for the new SouthSide Early Childhood Center (SSECC): Robbyn Wahby Executive Assistant to the Mayor, Amy Moss SSECC Board President, Anne Kessen Lowell Executive Director, Carol Voss & Tom Voss Honorary Capital Campaign Committee Chairs, and Chris Koster/ Missouri Attorney General

On Saturday July 12, 2014, SouthSide Early Childhood Center (SSECC) celebrated its long awaited Grand Opening. While there are still a few things to complete (i.e. the City of St. Louis still needs to finish the right of way project to replace curbs, trees and sidewalks), the building is now up and running. For Oculus and Southside, this has been a journey that started over three years ago. To have a facility that better reflects & supports their mission has been a dream of Southside for well over a decade. The project took many twists and turns and had many hurdles to clear, but on Saturday we all celebrated a lot of hard work, commitment, and dedication by all the participants from donors to staff to the Oculus team that through a lot of creative and tireless work got this project to the finish line.  

The building design is a stunning, light-filled school that blends seamlessly with the surrounding architecture while supporting SouthSide’s mission in serving our community. The new entry area is flanked by an open stair to the upper level and includes a check in desk and the SSECC history wall.  The new building gives the staff and program the tools needed to truly support the community. New classrooms allow for teachers to focus their attention on the kids in a really wonderful environment that has an abundant amount of natural light and ample views to the outside. Infant and toddler classrooms open directly to outside play spaces to expand the learning environment to the outside. The new facility now has designated spaces for people and supporting activities such as therapy services provided by the Belle Children's Services of the St. Louis Arc. The design features state-of- the-art classrooms, an interior play and gross motor room, a teaching kitchen for the children, support spaces such as laundry facilities as well as administrative offices, staff lounge, training facilities, nature-oriented playground with vegetable and herb garden and numerous opportunities for learning.

 
The Grand Opening featured several key Board Members, the Executive Assistant to the Mayor of the City of St. Louis, Tom & Carol Voss Honorary Capital Campaign Committee Chairs/major donors as well as the Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster.   

Southside Early Childhood Center - Construction Progress Continues

November 26, 2013
It appears that most or all of the presently cast tilt wall panels have been put into position. Workman are systematically pealing away the form liner. This is material used to efficiently place the thin bricks and stone texture onto the wall. This thin plastic allows the bricks to be placed with high precision by carpenters in a fraction of the time require to lay out true masonry walls. The work so has concentrated on the the front or two story section of the building which will house staff and Southside Administrative personnel. Only a few of the one story panels have been tilted at the North end of the building. The weather here in the Midwest has turned off much colder which may have slowed things some. Still and all progress is progressing at a modest pace compared with other forms of building construction. This will truly be a robust and long lasting form of construction for this building type.

View From Alley

 

View of Admin. Wing from Ann



View of Admin. Wing  showing stair tower.

View of partial main building entry

View of main entry and stair tower from Russel

View from Russell Showing fire separation wall between admin and classroom wing

Southside Early Childhood-Let the tilting begin!

November 20, 2013.
Southside Early Childhood center reaches major milestone.

A major step forward as the long awaited tilting of the tilt walls start. While work was suspended today do to the rain, Wednesday marked a real milestone for the project with the first walls being tilted up. The walls have been cast and cured laying down. Now they are being tilted into position. Construction on the building shell should proceed rather quickly as Rhodey Construction and the tilt wall contractor Fenix work through the process of tilting the cast concrete panels. The panel system being used incorporates thin brick and form liner stone as well as integral walls insulation. This is a highly efficient and robust construction assembly which should serve the new SSECC for many years into the future. Southside has been provide service in South St. Louis for over 128 years. The new building will help them continue these incredibly valuable community support for generations to come. Oculus Inc. designed the new facility. Aedifica Case is the structural engineer. CEDC is the Civil. Cole is the landscape Architects.

Link to Fox news story!

Panels along Jefferson

Jefferson side of Corner

Panels along Russel!

View toward South Jefferson

View From Alley

Stabilizers

Looking North on Jefferson!