Some work on the $35.48-million project for the Greene County School District will be done this fall, but construction won’t start until next spring.

Superintendent Tim Christensen says the School Board recently approved an $18,900 contract with Terracon Consultants for Geotechnical Engineering Services to do soil and compaction testing of the site for the new high school and career academy west of American Athletic Incorporated and Spaulding on Highway 30. “Because the architects need to write specs for footings. And depending on what the soil type is and everything, they don’t want to oversize a footing, which then is going to cost more money. They want to right size everything.”

As far as the land itself, Christensen points out that the School Board previously approved the purchase of 80-acres of land owned by Mike and Kathy Bravard this past April. The Board at that time approved to buy 49.92-acres at $17,250 per acre for a total of $861,121. The Board stipulated that within the next five years, they could purchase the remaining 34.7-acres at the same price. However, Christensen says they are going to purchase the full 80-acres due to the Bravards finding another piece of land as part of the 1031 Exchange program.

Finally, the Board has discussed starting construction this fall, but Christensen notes that they’ve decided to wait until next spring.

“The concern is if you build a pad in the fall, then you’ve got the freeze and thaw cycle over the winter. You may have to spend twice the money because you’ve got to bring somebody else in again and do a little more work on the pad. If there’s no work potentially needed and they pour concrete on it and then something happens in the future, then there becomes finger pointing.”

Christensen adds that they plan to bid the project in January or February, with construction to start in March or April. Conceptual drawings of the project are anticipated to be ready within the next couple of weeks.