Elkins School Board OKs $4.5 million contruction projects

ELKINS — The School Board approved costs for three construction projects totaling about $4.5 million at a special board meeting Thursday night.

Bids for a football stadium, weight room and administration building were presented by Mike Davis, vice president of Milestone Construction Company, the school’s construction manager.

The football stadium will be turned 90 degrees from the current field and will cost $3,274,005. The cost includes a track around the field, bleachers, a press box, a ticket booth and other features associated with the stadium.

The current stadium seats 1,200. Board member Laren Vaught said in the meeting

she’d like to make sure the new bleachers seat at least as much, if not more.

“There are games we’ve been standing room only,” she said.

Board president Bryan Delozier said with the construction work and new stadium, “we are going to bring a lot more money to the city.”

Construction should begin around the beginning of the year and the stadium project should be completed in about eight months, according the Milestone’s estimate, potentially in time for the first football game of the 2018 season. The first home game will be Aug. 30 and will be played by the junior high school team, athletic director Aaron Clark said.

The weight room will be added on the north side of the stadium and will run the length of the gymnasium. It will mostly be open air space for all male and female sports, superintendent Dan Jordan said. Elkins schools has about 225 athletes in seventh through 12th grades, Clark said.

The cost for the weight room will be $498,495 and Delozier estimated it would take four months to complete. Costs for a the new administration building will be $778,784 with an estimated construction time of five months.

The school district has been renting the current administration building for several years after the old building was demolished because of termite damage, Jordan said.

The new building will be constructed back at the old location next to the middle school, Jordan said. It will save the district from paying rent and the extra broadband fees at the current location on South Center Street and East First Avenue, he said.