A $46-million renovation of Sunset High School will include a 1,000-seat competition gym, a black-box theater, new administration offices and a holistic makeover of the school’s mishmash interior.

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Construction could start as soon as November. If all goes as planned, it could be finished in August 2023.

Corgan architecture presented its designs for the school to neighbors in the Sunset auditorium Tuesday night.

Sunset was built in 1925, and the original building is a City of Dallas Landmark, so the Landmark Commission has to approve the design before it moves forward. The hearing for that is set for April 6.

The Jefferson Boulevard-facing historic side of the school will get new windows, the kind made to look like 100-year-old windows but are energy efficient and provide ultraviolet protection. The front vestibule will receive security updates, and administrative offices in the historic school will be turned into classrooms.

The Tenth Street side, depicted above, will get a new entryway and the addition of an administrative suite and nurse’s office.

The competition gym would sit just to the west of that, with its entrance facing Tenant Street. New athletics facilities also include locker rooms, a weight room and a mat room.

The competition gym is the dark blue building at the bottom.

Sunset, which has about 2,000 students currently and is capped at 2,100, has 296 parking spaces and nine portable buildings. After the renovation, it will still have nine portables but 315 parking spaces. That’s because the parking lots will be reconfigured to use the space better.

The school’s annex building, across Oak Cliff Boulevard from the main school, will be used for administrative purposes and adult education, and the portables on that site will be moved to the main campus. So there will be no more students crossing Oak Cliff Boulevard to reach their classes during the day.

Besides that, Corgan came up with a cohesive interior design for the school, which lacks flow between sections that are 95, 60 and 20 years old.

Here are more details of the project:

  • New black-box theater and set-building shop
  • Transform boys gym into practice gym
  • Renovated dance, choir and band rooms
  • Updated classrooms
  • Add way-finding signs
  • Replace roof, skylights, flooring, windows, paint and parking lots
  • New art room kilns
  • New baseball netting

Here’s what Sunset Principal Claudia Vega has to say about the project:

Sunset High School is a landmark for the Dallas community in many ways. The upcoming additions and renovations will allow for us to enhance the curricular and extra curricular opportunities for our students and community. The presence and collaboration of students, teachers and community members at last night’s meeting demonstrates the passion that the Oak Cliff community has for  Sunset high school and the success of our students. Our students and our community deserve the very best and  it is evident that Dallas ISD and the city of Dallas are working to make this happen.