Video: An Inside Look At School Construction in Lowndes County

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – A multi-million dollar project in Lowndes County is almost complete.

Soon, New Hope High School students will be in the newest school building in the district.

The $24 million dollar project took off in early 2016 and is expected to be complete in January.

This time next year, this state of the art building will be packed with students, teachers, and desks.

Construction is 80% complete and workers have been on the job six days a week to get this building done.

This New Hope High School building is 160,000 square feet, with 52 classrooms and a tornado shelter.

The facility will replace the current school that was built in the 1990’s.

“It’s designed for growth. We’re going to have enough room where we could expand, probably around 800 students here now, and it could probably handle a little over a thousand and it’s also designed to where it can be added on to if we need to expand in the future,” says Superintendent Lynn Wright.

Construction continues in what will be the gym.

This WCBI drone footage shows you just how big the commons area will be, once the work is complete.

School leaders toured schools across the country to find the best floor plans for teachers and students.

“Over where we’re are at now, it’s upstairs and downstairs. This is all one level, so we’re excited about that. We have dance rooms, everything that makes noise is off the back, so P.E., band, dance, show choir, are in the back of the school and all of the academic classes are in the front,” says New Hope High School principal, Matt Smith.

The new school is something district leaders and New Hope High staff and students have been prepping for, for two years.

“We proposed a bond issue, it passed and with the industry that we have, you know, our goal was to be able to do this construction without raising any taxes and so far, we’ve been able to do that and provide this. We hit the timing just right before construction costs had gone up anymore and while the bonds were the cheapest they’ve ever been,” says Wright.

The district has a number of construction projects going at once.

“This project is running a little bit long and the career tech is running a little bit long, due to some issues that we couldn’t help, but as of January 1, we’re looking at taking procession of buildings, both buildings,” says district maintenance supervisor, Greg Wheat.

The other building is a $14 million dollar Career Tech Center.

“We were only one of three school districts that did not have a centralized site back, well up to right now, and the others were in the process of getting them a career tech center, but we were number one in industrial development in the state of Mississippi, so this was a need that was identified by our communities,” says Wright.

The goal is to pay off the bond within ten years.

Even though work will be done here in January, students won’t walk through these doors until the next school year, in August.