CMS building ‘within budget,’ ‘on schedule’
Cutter Morning Star School District Superintendent Nancy Anderson says the construction of the new high school and sports arena is “within budget” and “on schedule” to be completed in August 2020.
“They’re actually finishing the Sheetrock in the classrooms, and they’re going to start painting the classrooms this week. They’ve got all the trusses and the beams up, and the roof on the arena. They’re currently working on the safe room and the arena structure itself,” Anderson said.
Voters approved an 8.4-mill increase in September 2018 to fund the project, which has a total budget of around $15 million. The district received $6.266 million through the Academic Facilities Partnership Program of the Arkansas Department of Education, Anderson said. The groundbreaking for the project was on May 21, 2018.
Both facilities were designed by Jackson Brown Palculict Architects in Little Rock. Hill & Cox Corp. is handling construction.
Featuring a split-level design, the high school building will have eight junior high classrooms on the bottom floor and eight high school classrooms on the top level with a ground-level space for administration and common shared areas for art, music, media specialists and computer labs.
The facility is designed to accommodate 307 students. The district’s total enrollment for junior high and high school is 297, Anderson said.
The arena will seat at least 1,500 to make hosting state basketball tournaments, graduation, volleyball games and esports and archery tournaments a possibility.
The Class of 2021 will be the first to graduate from the new building. While the Class of 2020 will not have the opportunity to use the new facilities, Anderson said the school still intends on including them in the new building.
Friday, the class, along with other grades, toured the building. Anderson said a senior student asked her if the class could be given a private tour of the completed building prior to the ribbon cutting, and she agreed.
All classes that toured had the opportunity to write notes, quotes, poems, etc. to be placed within the walls of a chosen classroom and have the room dedicated to them. The Class of 2020 was allowed to have first pick of the rooms.
Others who toured the facilities Friday included Randy Palculict of Jackson Brown Palculict Architects, Hill & Cox construction manager Robbie Cox, state Sen. Alan Clark, R-District 13, and Arkansas Department of Education Director of Facilities and Transportation Tim Cain.
Cain, who was invited to tour by Anderson, said, “It’s nice. It’s really nice. I’m looking forward to seeing it when it’s completed, but what I love is that Dr. Anderson is involving the students in it. I think that’s great. It’s part of their lives, and they’re actually seeing it. I’m excited for the community. It’s great for the community, these facilities.”
He also said he plans to visit again once the project is finished.
As for the old high school building, Anderson said no plans have been set for it yet.
“We’re undecided what we’re going to do with the old high school at this time,” she said. “We’ll get some community input, but we have not made any decisions.”
Last year, the school applied for grant funds to convert the building into a school-based health clinic. However, Anderson said CMS was not selected to receive the funds.
“We did not get that last year,” she said.
The project currently has about 75 workers per day, Anderson said.
“We’re really excited about that because most of them are local, which is helping the economy throughout the county and the community,” she said.
Anderson said there have not been any major setbacks in construction recently, just minor “inconveniences.”
“We’ve been able to work. We’ve had a couple of issues with the gas lines and the waterline and things like that, but nothing that halted construction for any extended period of time.”