Skeleton goes up for Decatur cafeteria

DECATUR — After the completion of the middle school gym in 2018, members of the School Board, along with Steve Watkins, school superintendent, turned their attention to the renovation of the Decatur High School complex which includes the main building, offices, cafeteria, band room, art room and the former pre-K building.

Now the board’s twoyear-long effort has paid off with the erection of the steel framework that will become the new DHS cafeteria.

During the morning of Dec. 28, crews from Kinco Constructors, with the use of a 75-foot heavy lift crane, began assembly of the steel framework that will become the west wall of the new cafeteria. By Thursday afternoon, the framework was completed on the west wall and work turned to the south wall adjacent to the present cafeteria.

The present Decatur High School building was completed in late 1971 and was operational within a few months. This building replaced the 1937 Decatur High School building which now serves as Decatur City Hall.

Over the years, the nearly 50-year-old building had several additions to the original structure. But the old structure needed to be renovated or at best replaced. In 2016, Jeff Gravette, the superintendent at the time, and the school board decided to research the cost of replacing the old high school building. However, the priority at the time was to build a much needed new gym which included the renovation of parts of the old elementary school building (now middle school). When Gravette left to take the assistant superintendent position at Gravette, Watkins took over the project.

After a year of research, the board decided to renovate instead of replacing the existing structure.

During the summer of 2020, the green light was given to begin the first of a two-phase project, the construction of a new cafeteria.

After completion of the foundation of the cafeteria in late November, Kinco was ready to start erecting the building.

Once completed in mid2021, the old cafeteria will be converted to a new band and choir room for the Decatur High and Middle Schools’ music program. The old Pre-K building will be converted to an inside hallway and classrooms.

After phase one is complete, phase two construction will begin. This includes new administrative offices, classrooms and an inside hallway that runs the length of the school. Phase two is expected to be completed in late 2022.

(NWA Democrat-Gazette/Mike Eckels) Workers sort out pieces of a steel support structure as they get ready to attach them to a crane. These pieces make up the framework of the new Decatur High School cafeteria, which is part of the high school renovation project which began in September 2020.

(NWA Democrat-Gazette/Mike Eckels) A construction crane lifts a steel beam into place next to the old Decatur High School cafeteria. The steel skeleton of the new cafeteria started going up Dec. 28 and is expected to be complete by summer 2021.