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By LAUREN SEXTON | Sports Reporter

ALABASTER – Alabaster City Schools unveiled its update to the school system’s newest additions to the school district’s athletic program. In a press release, it was announced that the six-million-dollar project is only six weeks away from final completion and that the athletic programs use finished parts of the projects at both the middle and high school levels.

“I think all of our programs have grown in numbers,” Thompson Athletic Director Vincent Pitts said about Thompson’s reasoning for the recent updates. “We’ve tried to expand what we have facility-wise. I think everybody’s goal is to be the best and remain the best, so you don’t have to twist a whole lot of arms. Ultimately, everybody has the same goal.”

Construction broke on the project not too long ago by Volkert Program Management and McKee Architecture. The school contracted the project by Amason & Associates, Inc. The addition to Thompson includes a new multi-purpose practice field with natural grass and LED lighting spanning 2.8 acres, a third gymnasium featuring six basketball goals, a state-of-the-art sound system, LED lighting and new lockers/storage spaces for its visual ensemble, indoor training facilities for softball and baseball. 

In addition to the field and the gymnasium, both buildings will house two batting lanes with a retractable net system and weight training facilities with LED lighting, new hard floor tile for the athletics facility and new wall tile designed to provide uniform standards and extend the life of materials.

The spring facility will also receive upgrades such as newly-carpeted surfaces in the spring sports locker rooms, expansions to the coach’s locker room space, state-of-the-art hydrotherapy pool and flooring upgrades throughout; designed to conform to the standard the school system puts into the aesthetic.

“The addition of the baseball and softball indoor spaces will improve our training frequency and efficiency, allow our baseball and softball operations to be housed within the same location for all activities, and will help aid in the transition and expansion of our athletic training and sports medicine services at the baseball and softball facilities,” Pitts said in a recent press release. “New fields, in particular, will improve our ability to host tournaments, summer camps and other events as well as the ability to better accommodate daily operations within our soccer and football programs and better accommodate the practices of these programs and many other growing programs.”

The middle school has also had the opportunity to upgrade its facilities as well. Renovations have been made to the weight training facility, the gymnasium, and locker room upgrades designed to include floor and wall tile, and upgrades to restroom and locker plumbing fixtures with new lighting in PE locker rooms.

“We’ll have our gym shortly as basketball season begins,” Pitt said about the completed parts of the project. “Baseball and softball will be available for us soon, and the hydrotherapy piece of the projects has been utilized already. We’ve got a lot of good use out of what’s ready. We expect to get great use out of what will be coming available soon.”

Many of the updates to the facilities are in use by several teams as of October, however, projects are estimated to be completed soon.