by Matt Wright
If you haven’t driven on the Lakeland Prep campus in the last few weeks you might not recognize the place. Construction crews from Chris Woods Construction, the general contractor for the high school project, have been hard at work bringing the future high school out of the ground. In less than two months, the empty space to the east of the middle school has transformed into the basic layout of what’s to come.
The Sr. Project Manager for Chris Woods Construction, Bryan Campbell, along with Brad Grisanti (Project Manager) and John Fee (Superintendent of Construction) provided a tour to Lakeland Currents this morning to show how much work has already been accomplished.
Because of the unique funding mechanism thru the USDA, certain unique requirements had to be met before construction could begin. This put the general contractor behind schedule just a little bit but Mr. Grisanti said the company and sub-contractors have done a great job catching up.
According to Dr. Ted Horrell, Superintendent of Lakeland School System, “We received an updated schedule at our construction meeting this week, and there are no concerns about being finished in time to welcome our first 9th grade class in August of 2022. The contractors have really taken advantage of the great weather and hit the ground running.”
The majority of the work done so far has been underground work (like drains) and very extensive earthwork. “We had to move a tremendous amount of dirt from one side of the property to the location of the future gym, theater and some additional buildings.” Mr. Campbell said. He added, “In some locations we had to build the grade up almost 16 feet.” Now that much of the earthwork is complete for the high school educational space, along with the gym and theatre, concrete footings have been poured for the two story educational building that will house class room and labs. The contractors said they are optimistic concrete block will start going up soon. According to Mr. John Fee, residents can expect the walls of the educational buildings to be up in roughly 8 weeks. Footings for the gym and theatre are also expected to begin soon.
A new north parking lot (just north of the football field) already has curbs in place and sub-contractors were laying asphalt on the parking lot today. That parking lot will serve as future student and staff parking as well as parking for Lakeland Prep softball and baseball games. It can also be used for additional school functions like football games or theatre. Earthwork on a south parking lot below the football and soccer field is also underway and crews are expected to pour asphalt there very soon.
One of the goals of the contractor and the school system is to have the home football bleachers, a field house and the track around the football field complete by the summer of 2021 so they can be utilized for next school year. The existing bleachers on the football field will become the visitor side once the much larger home side bleachers are installed. While the high school itself will not be completed by next summer, the football field additions, along with the parking lots on both ends of the football field will provide a dramatic change for the campus by next summer. Contractors and school officials stressed those additions can not be guaranteed by this coming summer (due to weather conditions) but Mr. Campbell said, “that’s the goal and we will do what we can to make that happen. In fact, we’ve already sent the construction docs (for the bleachers) to the fabricators to begin work.”
While there’s still a long way to go, it’s easy to see the vison of many people taking shape. “This is going to be an incredible campus” said Mr. Campbell, “From the design to the layout, it’s very unique.”
