There’s a chance that the new Sartori Elementary School located in North Renton will deviate from the traditional neighborhood school model.

At a special presentation on June 8, a representative from the architectural firm Integrus revealed a three-story building plan for the school that is based on Sartori being a magnet school.

Magnet schools are schools that have a focused theme or aligned curriculum, including Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), fine and performing arts, world languages, MicoSociety and many others. These kinds of schools operate on an inquiry, performance or project based learning.

According to district spokesperson Randy Matheson, Interim Superintendent Art Jarvis and his team are trying to figure how to make the new Sartori a magnet school. But Matheson also stressed that no decisions have been made and that no formal proposition has been presented to the school board yet.

“We haven’t released that it’s a magnet school because we’re still working on the educational aspect of the school,” he said. “The school would be designed the same, whether it is a neighborhood walking school or if it was a magnet school. We are having conversations in the district and we haven’t formed the actual program to present to the school board yet so it’s not finalized. The intent is to look into making that school a magnet school. A magnet school means that the enrollment for that school can come from all over the district.”

George Daniels, North Renton Neighborhood Association president, posted a letter addressed to the city’s Community and Economic Development administrator Chip Vincent online, voicing his concerns over the presentation.

“We were surprised to hear for the first time this is to be a magnet school not a neighborhood school… we got ambiguous answers as to whether North Renton kids would get priority to attend this school,” said Dainels in the letter. He also said he got the notion that Sartori was a “monument for the Renton School District, rather than providing a quality facility with the main purpose to teach children.”

According to Matheson, if the district decides to go the magnet school route, North Renton students would have first access to the school.

“The boundaries would be set up so that anyone can apply to be in that school from all around the district,” Matheson said. “Magnets are set up so that neighborhood kids who are in a one-mile walking distance have first access to the school, and then the magnet element kicks in after that.”

The school is estimated to have a 650-student capacity and Matheson projects there will be a waitlist for the school.

At the presentation, the representative from Integrus said that the building plan was based on the city’s plans to transform the North Renton area from a residential neighborhood to a commercial mixed- use area with pockets of medium to high density residential areas. He also said that the firm used The Landing as a model of what the neighborhood will look like.

“[The neighborhood] is sitting in an area of your city that’s in a great deal of transitions,” he said at the presentation. “It’s currently in a residential neighborhood… but we’re of designing it forward-thinking, for where the city believes the neighborhood and the site is going… You can see that the current character of the neighborhood is not seen by the city as the future of the space.”

However, according to Vincent, the city has no plans on transforming the neighborhood.

“The architect misspoke when referencing the zoning potential and the fact that the city was considering doing anything differently that currently exists in the North Renton neighborhood,” said Vincent.

Daniels did not respond to a request for further comment before deadline.

The school is located 315 Garden Ave. N. and is projected to open in September 2018. According to a press release, demolition of the homes on the perimeter of the property is scheduled for June and demolition of the school building is scheduled for either August or September.