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College Station and Bryan school districts continue work on millions of dollars’ worth of projects that voters approved in bond packages over the past two years.

In Bryan, the new Sadberry Intermediate School is on track to be ready for its inaugural class of fifth grade students by August 2023, and other projects at Rudder High School and at the two currently open intermediate schools are on schedule as well. However, the search for land for the new Haliburton Auxiliary Complex that will house the district’s maintenance, transportation, custodial, warehouse and school nutrition departments has caused some setbacks, said Paul Buckner, energy and construction project manager for the Bryan school district.

Jon Hall, executive director of facilities for the College Station school district, said the projects that are currently underway from the district’s $78 million bond are on schedule, barring any future delays.

Hall said the first major hurdle was completing the first phase of renovation at Southwood Valley Elementary School.

He said they were sweating it as they neared the final days of summer before students returned for the current school year, but finished everything in time.

“We had to really do some juggling to pull that one off, and we did,” he said. “Hopefully the other ones won't be as tight.”

The project included renovations of a kindergarten wing and updating the principal’s office suite, reception area and security vestibule. Phase two of the project, which will include more renovations throughout the building, is scheduled to begin in summer of 2024; however, Hall said the district is already seeking contractor bids for the construction.

The district also has completed the first phase of the renovations to A&M Consolidated High School, which included renovations to half of the bathrooms in the building. Hall said the project in its entirety is the biggest in the bond package, and will likely span four summers.

They are currently in meetings to develop plans to redo Consol's auditorium and update the school’s security vestibule next summer.

Both Consol and College Station High School recently received new metal canopies behind their ag shops to provide shade and more room for students to work on projects.

Renovations at Pebble Creek Elementary School are set to take place in 2023, and renovations at Cypress Grove Intermediate School are scheduled to begin in the summer of 2024.

Phase one of security improvements across the district are in the final stages of the design process.

Work on the district’s natatorium is expected to begin in April, Hall said. The boiler already has been replaced, but the rest of the work — installing new finishes, new plaster in the pool and renovations to the tile and locker rooms — will take place in the spring.

“We're going to stretch it $2.3 million as far as we can and get that place spruced back up and fixed up,” Hall said. “If you’ve seen some of our pictures when we were going for the bond package, it’s pretty rough looking right now.”

The only new construction included in the bond was the construction of the Career and Technology Education Center, which will serve as an ag barn and also have office and classroom spaces.

Hall said it has a budget of $5.2 million and is about 75% through the design process. He expects construction to begin in January and open to students in February 2024.

The exact site has not been decided, but one location being considered is a 90-acre tract of land the district purchased four or five years ago on South Dowling Road. Originally intended as the future site of a new comprehensive high school when the district needed it, the lack of infrastructure does not support that type of building. However, it would work for an ag facility, Hall said.

In total, Hall said, he expects the bond to stretch out over about five years, noting time over the summer is the greatest limiting factor they face.

“We’ve only got about nine weeks’ worth of summer,” he said. “We can have a big appetite for all we want to do, but yeah we’ve only nine weeks’ worth of time to do it. There’s only so much you can tear out, gut and rebuild in a nine week cycle.”

During the Sept. 6 board workshop, Buckner updated the board on projects included in the $175 million bond voters approved in November 2020.

In addition to new construction of a third intermediate school and maintenance and operations building, the bond also allowed for land purchase for the Haliburton Auxiliary Complex.

The process of finding land for the auxiliary facility began in October 2019 and has gone through multiple possible locations before landing on the site on Leonard Road and FM 2818 that the Bryan school district purchased from Blinn College in June.

Originally, the auxiliary site had a scheduled completion of July 2022, Buckner said. The new timeline has a move-in date of February 2024.

“We still haven’t broken ground, so it’s really thrown our timelines out of whack,” he told the school board. “We have been able to make alterations and actually keep projects on schedule, like we had to, that we originally set out for when the bond was passed in November of 2020.”

Some of those alterations were turning the Sadberry Intermediate School project into a two-phase project because the new school is being built next to the current maintenance and transportation facility.

The first phase — the school building itself, across from Elementary School — is on schedule to be complete for the 2023-24 school year. A second phase is scheduled for February 2024 that will include construction of back parking lots, playing fields and a covered basketball court. The second phase will begin after the current maintenance and transportation facility is demolished.

Turning the intermediate school project into two phases eliminates additional costs associated with finding a temporary site for the district’s maintenance, transportation and auxiliary services.

Buckner said the district is currently in the process of working with the city of Bryan to update the zoning on the property from what Blinn College had, so it will fit the district’s needs. An updated proposal shows some land being left in a natural state as conservation areas.

At Rudder High School, Buckner said, the classroom addition on the backside of the school is on track to be complete by the end of the year, based on a report from the project’s contractor.

The CTE Complex on Mumford Road has a new operational gate to increase security at the career and technology education site that serves students from throughout the Brazos Valley area.

Work continues, he said, on roof renovations at Rayburn Intermediate School and Long Intermediate School with an anticipated completion date between late November and mid-December, weather pending. He said the work has shifted to being done after hours and on weekends now that the school year has started.

“If you drive by at 2 o’clock in the morning for some reason, there’s a good chance you’re going to see lights and people on top of that roof,” he said. “… Any dry period, they are taking advantage and trying to get on site.”

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