Amid the weeks of closures, social distancing and shelter-in-place from COVID-19 comes welcome news about LPS.
Construction is starting by the end of June on Lakeland Preparatory School (LPS). And City and school officials don’t anticipate significant impacts on construction debt service from possible revenue shortfalls related to the pandemic.
Dr. Ted Horrell, Lakeland School System (LSS) superintendent, said,
“Our USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) application timeline had construction starting no earlier than June 1st, and we will most likely have construction activity on the site by the end of June.
“We are finalizing the construction documents now which will then be filed for approval with the various state and local agencies, and our construction manager, Chris Woods Construction, will put the documents out for bid with subcontractors.
“The summer start date was not related to students being in the building as we will be under construction for two years with students in the building, so having the students out of school early does not affect our schedule.”
Asked if possible revenue shortfalls related to COVID-19 might hinder the City or LSS to pay debt service on the USDA loan, Michael L. Walker, CPA, Lakeland finance and human resources director, said,
“At this time, we do not anticipate our debt service for construction of the new LSS high school facility to be significantly impacted due to revenue shortfalls related to COVID-19. While we continue to monitor the economic impact of COVID-19 on our sales tax revenues, we anticipate minimal disruption to the City’s financial health. These sales tax revenues represent less than 25% of our General Fund’s revenues planned for fiscal year 2021, and the City has sufficient reserves at this time. That said, if there is a prolonged period of economic downturn, such as beyond the first couple months of our coming fiscal year, we will need to review our projections further and respond accordingly.”
Dr. Horrell said, “There are no concerns with LSS paying the City our share of the debt service.”
The new school serving grades 9-12 will be adjacent to the current Lakeland Middle Preparatory School (LMPS). Plans are to re-name both the current middle school (grades 5-8) and the high school as Lakeland Preparatory School. The first high school in Lakeland is to open in August 2022 with 9th grade (current 6th graders). That grade would move up one grade each year and would be the first graduating class from the high school in May 2026. The project is to take 33 months, completing in June 2022. USDA will provide financing for the $40 million facility. When complete, Lakeland will have a complete K-12 school system.
A groundbreaking was scheduled for May 16th, but it is not to be, at least for the near future. “The date was originally scheduled for a time while school was in session, and all LSS activities are cancelled through the end of the summer until we know what the City and County guidelines will be for containing the spread of Covid-19. As guidelines are updated, it is possible we will look at some ceremony to commemorate the start of construction at a later date,” said Dr. Horrell.
The timeframe on construction basically is for construction managers to turn over the building in June 2022. “While our design and construction team utilizes internal benchmarks, the construction managers are only responsible for turning over the building in June of 2022,” said Dr. Horrell.
Design elements
Commenting on the aesthetics of the new school, Dr. Horrell said, “We are excited about some of the new design elements that we believe will build upon the architectural foundation of the middle school while maintaining the look and feel of one campus. The new auditorium, in particular, gives us some opportunities to introduce new concepts within our original framework. As with the middle school, we are committed to building a school that is attractive, functional, and cost-effective.”
The team working on the school includes Renaissance Group, the architectural firm which hires the engineering subcontractors; A2H provides civil engineering services; Chris Woods Construction is the construction manager; and Dr. Jim Mitchell with Southern Educational Strategies is the owner consultant.
There are to be 56 regular high school classrooms along with space for other classes in the new wing, such as art, science and music. With 34 classrooms currently in the middle school, that will put the regular classroom total at 90 for grades 5-12.
CTE classes
For CTE (Career and Technical Education) classes, Dr. Horrell said “We have designed CTE classroom spaces to specifically accommodate health sciences education, cybersecurity, coding, graphic media, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), but we have flexible spaces that would allow a wide variety of other CTE paths.”
Specifics about the school
- A specific high school entrance, separate from the middle school entrance. Dr. Horrell said the building will not be a separate high school completely blocked off from the middle school. “There is a second entrance that we anticipate using for high school arrival and dismissal, but some cars will have both high school and middle school students. Middle school students will utilize parts of the new building, and vice versa.”
- New cafeteria seating, likely for high school students, with its own service lines and warmers
- A varsity gym to seat more than 2,000
- An auditorium to seat more than 800 with an ADA ramp
- TV and film production space
- Lots of storage through the new addition
- 25,000 square-feet of new athletic facilities outside
- Current parking for 200 to be increased to almost 1,000 spaces
- New concession stand and restrooms
- Multi-purpose locker room and office facility
- Large football fieldhouse
- Baseball and softball locker rooms
- Multi-purpose field
“As I’ve mentioned in board meetings, we put our entire wish list into the design, and it is possible we will phase in certain of the athletic facilities over the first few years of the school being open,” said Dr. Horrell. “At this point, it looks like we will bid as add alternates the baseball and softball field house, the multi-purpose field house, and a new maintenance building so we can determine after our final pricing if they are within our initial budget. We may also phase in some of the parking over the first few years of the new school being open.”
Joint-use athletic fields
As construction starts on the high school, work will also begin on multi-purpose grass athletic fields which will be jointly used by the school and the Lakeland Parks and Recreation Department.
The fields will be on the east side of Lateral B, a small creek running between the current athletic fields on the middle school campus and the new fields.
The joint use of the fields was enabled by the donation last year from the Wiles family of land off Old Brownsville Road providing access to the rest of the school campus.
The project will include at least five multi-purpose grass athletic fields, a new asphalt drive connecting to Old Brownsville Road, a paved parking lot with no less than 150 spaces, a concessions stand/restroom facility and lighting, covering four of five fields. Cost is $3.2 million and required a transfer of that amount to LSS from the City for construction of the fields.
The athletic fields on the east side of the campus must be turned over by August of 2021 according to Dr. Horrell.
Link to MOU (Memorandum of Understanding for the fields: https://lakelandk12.org/res/web/02.03.20%20BM/Athletic%20Fields%20MOU.pdf
