NOTRE DAME WORK ON SCHEDULE

Notre Dame High School is on target for completion Aug. 1, school administrators said.

School business manager Bob McGahan Tuesday afternoon led an open house and tour of the building for media and school patrons. Construction is progressing on schedule for the new Catholic school, going up along Route K about two miles west of Siemers Drive.

Many of the rooms and indoor areas are double or triple the size of those at the old school, said McGahan, including a much larger chapel and a combination cafeteria and auditorium.

(The building also will contain a gymnasium with a maximum capacity for 1,500 people.

"We're looking to host the districts and the playoffs with that kind of capacity," said McGahan.

Contractors for the 114,000-square-foot, $6.7 million school should complete the building within the contracted 15 months, he said. When completed, the school will have 30 classrooms and be able to accommodate 600 students, nearly double the old school's enrollment, which currently is 364.

"It'll just be so much easier in this facility than in the other building," he said. "When the classes do enlarge, we'll have the flexibility to facilitate that."

The building will occupy about 25 of the nearly 48 acres of land donated to the Cape Girardeau-Springfield Diocese by the James and Wanda Drury Family Trust. This was the largest project ever undertaken through the Cape Girardeau-Springfield Diocese.

The decision to build was made after a committee looked at whether to renovate the high school or construct a new campus in the early 1990s. Renovations would have cost a couple of million dollars, so the committee decided a new building would be more cost-effective.

McGahan said volunteers have solicited some 2,400 pledges and raised more than $5.4 million to finance construction of the school.

Cost of the school has increased slightly over the original cost to accommodate several safety changes, said McGahan.

"We've made some changes to our original plan to include seismic code, which essentially makes the building earthquake resistant, and to place tornado-resistant roofing throughout the classroom areas," he said. "They were decisions made for the safety and longevity of the school."

McGahan said another open house will be held following completion. Tentative plans have been made to move into the building during the summer, he said.)