By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The company managing construction of Alabaster’s new high school off Thompson Road is preparing to bid the athletic facility portion of the project in the coming weeks, a representative from the company told School Board members during an Aug. 30 meeting.

During the Alabaster Board of Education meeting, Jonathan Grammer with Volkert Inc., the company managing the new high school project, told board members the final major portion of the project is almost ready to bid.

“We are finishing up the phase four documents for bid, and we should bid those out in a few weeks,” Grammer said while giving an update on the project.

The School Board has already approved bids for phases one through three of the new high school which is currently under construction on a portion of 300 acres between Thompson Road and Kent Dairy Road.

Once the entire project is completed, the school facilities will be about 385,000 square feet, will initially be built to house 2,000 students and will be constructed with future expansions in mind.

The school will include 74 classrooms, 14 science lab classrooms, a 1,250-seat auditorium, a 150-seat black box theater, a 32,269-square-foot career academy and a 100-seat lecture hall.

Grammer said crews with the Argo Building Company are finishing up pouring slabs for phase one of the project, which includes construction of the majority of the main academic building, which will include the cafeteria, media center, special education facility and space for the school’s career technical program.

He said crews with the Clements-Dean construction company soon will begin work on phases two and three, which will include the meeting spaces, arena, indoor gym and other components of the school’s main academic building and the school’s fine arts building.

The new school is on track to be completed in time to open to students in the fall of 2017, Grammer said.

“We are still on track to be on time,” Grammer said. “There is no indication that will change. Everyting is going smoothly now.”