The historic renovation and restoration of Garland Elementary is one Kinco is particularly proud to be a part. Originally constructed in 1922 Garland Elementary was built to replace the original wood structured Garland Elementary built in 1879 and destroyed by fire in 1920. The new brick building was then added on to in 1938 and 1954 under the administration of the Little Rock School District. The school ceased operating as a school in 2001 and served to house many different administrative functions for several years until it was sold in 2017 for the renovation and purpose to house a new charter school.
The project was to renovate and restore the 38,716 square foot building to a new modern school while bringing the building back to its originally glory. The building was in bad shape from years of neglect and previous additions and renovations that did not reflect its historic nature. The new owners insisted on getting this building placed on the National Historic Register and succeeded in doing so. This effort required Kinco and WER Architects to design and build the project as close to original as possible. This required extensive care in both material selections and most of all craftsmanship.
A few of the challenges Kinco addressed during the course of construction was simply that of restoring fine details of the building to original. All windows in the building were replaced, taking out aluminum frame windows that had been added through the course of various remodels, and replacing them with new specially made Quaker windows made to match the original building design.
New wood doors inside made to match original design were installed while having to be hand cut in the field to match existing door frame sizes. All original wood trim detail had to be repaired and completely restored much of which was self-performed by Kinco craftsmen. Painting of walls and wood details alone required much coordination and testing by trial and error to ensure we were meeting historical requirements.
These challenges along with the typical issues of bringing a near 100-year-old building up to modern standards and efficiency allowed to Kinco to use all it’s skills, talents, craftsmanship and coordination abilities to meet the owners desire to restore this building while turning it into a new modern and efficient school.
Kinco was proud to restore such a historic building and see this building ready to serve future students. We are equally as excited that such a difficult project was completed on time and budget and most importantly with Zero Incidents.
