NEW PALESTINE — The drywall is up and electrical components are finally in the new classroom wing at New Palestine High School. All that is left now is for construction crews to finish up a few weeks worth of detail work and the new classrooms and new cafeteria will finally be ready for students.
“Everything is in,” communications director Wes Anderson said. “All the pieces are here and that had been the big problem creating the delays.”
The good word comes after months of setbacks surrounding the district’s $49 million renovation project which started in 2019 with the creation of a new softball field and a new fieldhouse during phase one of the project.
Officials from Southern Hancock Community School Corporation say, if all continues to go well the next few weeks, students will move from the makeshift classrooms in the new fieldhouse to 18 new, large classrooms at NPHS when they get back from spring break on April 10.
“This is where the bulk of our teaching will be done in the new math and English wings,” Anderson said.
Teachers will actually start the move to the new classrooms March 20, the week before spring break during an e-learning day when students will not be in the building. The official move over however won’t happen until that first day students get back from spring break.
“The new cafeteria will also be open after break and, in my view, it’s one of the crown jewels of this project,” Anderson said. “This thing… the cooking and storage area is incredible.”
The move is a long time coming after several setbacks due to construction delays caused by COVID and supply shortages. Students were supposed to be in the new classrooms at the start of this school year, but delays pushed things back seven months. District officials had estimated the project would take a little over two years to complete, but it is now in its fourth year.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You can’t have much worse luck than starting a major renovation project like this right before a worldwide pandemic hits,” Anderson said.
Still, during a recent tour of the facility, Anderson said the work has been worth the wait.
Once the students move out of the temporary classrooms in the new fieldhouse, work on the fieldhouse can start. The makeshift classrooms will be removed and the building will be transformed into the the athletic facility officials had in mind when they created the structure during the first phase of the project.
The new fieldhouse will be an athlete’s paradise with three basketball and volleyball courts, a three-lane indoor track, and additional locker rooms and restrooms.
The opening of the new state-of-the-art cafeteria means renovation in the old cafeteria can also start turning that area into a space for the NPHS band and choir programs.
The remaining work is at the front of the high school. A welcoming and lounge area for students and the community still must be created in the old athletic department area, and a new guidance area is to be constructed to the north of the main entrance before the project is complete, which officials hope will be by the end of 2023.
“We’re hoping by January we’ll be done-done,” Anderson said. “Crews will be packed up and gone.”
The district’s school board signed an amendment at the most recent school board with the Skillman Corporation, which was first entered into back in 2019 that will extend their contract by 11 months. The extension covers time from Dec. 2022 through Oct. 2023. The amendment contains a monthly fee, which officials noted was reduced from the original contract of $23,179 a month, as well as a $4,500 monthly fee — part of the original $49 million project.
The amendment notes that the Skillman Corporation will assist and lead the district’s efforts to recover financial damages related to contractor delays, including the additional fees for construction management services.
