CONSTRUCTION PROGRESSES ON NEW HIGH SCHOOL

Progress on a steel framework and block walls that will make up a new Cape Girardeau high school has district leaders hopeful the building will be completed on budget and in plenty of time for the school's opening in fall 2002.

Motorists on nearby Interstate 55 can clearly see the high school taking shape on the 70-acre tract it will share with the recently completed Career and Technology Center. The shared campus is situated just off of a gravel stretch of Silver Springs Road that connects to South Kingshighway.

"It's hard to look at that and not be proud to be here. It's going to be a wonderful facility," said Cape Girardeau schools business manager Rob Huff, who toured the construction site Thursday.

Much of the steel frame is completed for the school, and individual classrooms -- including an expanded band and vocal music area, can be seen. On Thursday, contractors began laying the orange-colored bricks that will make up a portion of the building's exterior.

Behind schedule

Construction is about 26 days behind schedule, mainly due to rain and snowfall that prevented contractors from completing sitework in December. Architect Dennis Young of William B. Ittner Inc. in St. Louis said the delay should be made up soon, and daily meetings with contractors and suppliers will help ensure the school opens on time.

Young said the project is complex because of its size, but Kiefner Brothers Construction, the general contractor for the project, has done a good job of timing supply shipments and project start dates so there are no gaps in work.

"It's a good sign when you see stuff laying around, because that means it's ready to be put up," Young told the Board of Education earlier this week. "It's important on a project this size that your contractors and subs are working very hard now, because you don't want to have to use that kind of energy to catch up at the end of the project."

The timeliness of completing construction has been a sticking point for school board members who were disgusted with the slow completion of Blanchard Elementary School two years ago. Blanchard's opening, originally scheduled for August 1999, didn't occur until five months later because contractors fell behind schedule.

The high school is the final construction project included in a long-range building plan approved by the district in 1996. Voters approved a $14 million bond issue in 1997 to fund construction of a new high school, vocational school, and improvements at most other buildings.

An $18 million, no-tax-increase bond issue was approved by voters in April 2000 to finance the high school project, which is expected to cost about $19.6 million to complete. An estimated $1.6 million in interest earned from the bond sales and some local money will be used to make up the cost difference, Huff said.

The new school will house grades nine through 12 and will likely be called Central High School after it opens. The existing high school will then become a seventh- and eighth-grade junior high, and fifth and sixth grades will be housed in the current junior high school.

All elementary schools will house kindergarten through fourth grades. Louis J. Schultz School, the district's oldest facility, will be closed.