New Marble Falls Middle School gym to be ready by next week
“We were told this week that everything in the new middle school gym will be cleaned up and ready to go Sunday,” Superintendent Ryder Warren said. “In the second half of the week we’ll probably start moving the athletic gear and the athletes into the new facility. Then the following week, we’ll start moving the PE kids over.”
The middle school renovations and expansion project, which includes the gym, is projected to cost $13.6 million
In November 2006, school district voters approved a bond that included renovations at the middle school and Marble Falls Elementary School. It also included more classrooms at Marble Falls High School and Highland Lakes Elementary School and a new extracurricular facility at the high school. The district is also building a new Colt Elementary School behind the high school.
Eventually, the current Colt Elementary will be transformed into administrative space and Falls Career High School, possibly by 2010.
Warren said the middle school gym will be ready for the first Lady Ponies home basketball game.
“This is huge for us,” he said. “A year and a half ago when we sat down with Charter Builders (the construction manager firm) and started going over all the construction phases, we told them if we let them into the two-story building at the middle school, we needed the new gym ready by this November.”
The superintendent said if the middle school gyms hadn’t been completed by November, there would have been problems with the basketball schedules.
“We were all right with the middle school volleyball season because there weren’t boys’ and girls’ teams, so we were good with only one gym,” he said. “But we have boys’ and girls’ basketball teams. Without the new gym ready to go, it would have made things difficult for us.”
The new gym has a boys and girls section.
Warren said Charter Builders came through and delivered with time to spare.
“And our students and staff at the middle school have done a fantastic job dealing with the construction,” Warren said.
The new gym is only part of the renovations at the middle school, which includes academic and administrative space along with a larger library.
Warren said Charter Builders should turn over more of the middle school projects to the district between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“Then Marble Falls Elementary School should be completed around Christmas,” he said. “With the exception of Colt Elementary School, everything else should be completed by Spring Break.”
The new Colt is scheduled to be finished in the summer. “We’ll move into it over the summer and in the fall the kids will start classes at the new school,” Warren said.
The superintendent said the city of Marble Falls has begun construction on the road that will come off RR 1431 and go to the new Colt Elementary and the new athletic complex.
“The city has said two lanes of the road should be completed in July,” he said. “The rest of it should be done by October.”
The road, which will be called Manzano Mile after Marble Falls graduate and Olympian Leonel Manzano, will eventually be five lanes. Officials said it will relieve traffic jams.
“Right now everything is on schedule,” Warren said. “This is an exciting time for our district.”
daniel@thepicayune.com