Gulf Shores, Ala. – (OBA) – Several school projects are underway in Gulf Shores mostly on the elementary school campus with an eight-classroom addition being built and renovations will take place at two of the older buildings there this summer.

But the big one is the new high school where work has started on 200 acres at the southwest intersection of the Beach Express and Coastal Gateway Boulevard.

“We have site work going on at the high school site on Coastal Gateway Boulevard,” Public Works Director Noel Hand said. “Right now, our contractor is Cunningham Delaney and the cost is $7.5 million just for the site work. That package is for the mobilization, the erosion control which is taking place now. The excavation and the placing of roughly about 300,000 cubic yards of material.”

This first part of the massive project will lay the groundwork, literally, for the upcoming phases of the project and putting in infrastructure to manage the water on the site. There is already several thousand linear feet of drainage pipe at the site to install. The building is still in design and city officials don’t have a total cost on the completed high school campus.

“Right now, we’ll be installing over the next 200 days drainage ponds, pipes, sewer lines, the conduit for the power lines, domestic water lines, fire lines, sidewalks, curbing and the asphalt minus the final surface of the parking lot,” Craft said.

The site, donated to the city by the family of Mayor Robert Craft, has been historically wet so Hand wants to make sure the water is under control before the upcoming phases.

“They’re getting the ponds in and that will get the site dry quicker,” Hand said.

Which will help expedite the construction of the buildings when that phase begins sometime after the seven months of site work is completed.

“When the general contractor gets to the building, he’ll be really ready to go to be able to work on a clean site,” Hand said. “We don’t really have to worry about drainage. It’ll be all in place, it’ll be dry so we don’t have to worry about the next contractor having these issues.”

Craft said the drainage infrastructure is not just for the campus site but for the entire 200 acres.

“If we don’t at least get the ditches and drainage and lakes so when it does get wet the water doesn’t sit on the wet site,” Craft said. “It will allow us to go to work a lot quicker. This is not specific to the site high school proper but the general drainage for the whole area, lakes and roadway reinforcement so we can get in and out of there when it’s wet in the summer. Hopefully the plan will keep us high and dry and there won’t be any interruptions.”

Other projects completed or underway include the $5.38 million STEAM lab collaborative learning center which is now serving students, the $5.42 million eight-class addition which is under construction and another $3.1 to renovate two of the older buildings all on the elementary campus.