Audio clip
Vic Grider
SOUTH PITTSBURG, Tenn. — The completion of South Pittsburg High School’s new gym and industrial arts center this summer will heal wounds left last year by controversy over the project, officials said.
“Everything is right on time,” said assistant principal Vic Grider, who monitors the project.
“They’ve got a scheduled completion date for the end of July, which will put us in the new building in the next school year,” Mr. Grider said.
He said the building is beginning to take a recognizable shape.
“About 80 percent of the exterior walls have been completed,” he said. “The biggest, most difficult part of the project is where it ties in to the existing building.”
He said the roof should be finished within a month and work should speed along then.
But County Commissioner Don Blansett, who represents South Pittsburg, said he’ll reserve judgment until the building’s finished.
“In my point of view, the building will do what we need it to do,” Mr. Blansett said. “We’re not arguing any more about the gyms and the schools. We can work on other problems.”
Mr. Blansett stressed that the Marion County school board and its architect formulated South Pittsburg plans as part of a countywide vision. He said disputes started last year after the projects were drawn.
Initial drawings with more than $2 million in added costs for the original 40,000-square foot building sparked controversy.
The towns of South Pittsburg, New Hope and Monteagle filed a lawsuit last March calling for an injunction against Marion’s building program. Attorneys eventually compromised on a 30,000-square-foot gym at a cost of just less than $5 million, records show. Officials said revised plans trimmed 10,000 square feet of “unusable” space, such as stairwells.
The new gym, progress of other school projects and South Pittsburg’s state football championship has drawn Marion County communities together, Director of Schools Mark Griffith said.
“I think once we got the thing worked out and folks saw that the board was willing to come together, I think everything was good. We started the healing process sometime in May,” Mr. Griffith said.
“When South Pittsburg won the state championship it was good for the community as a whole,” he said. “I saw the excitement in all 4,000 kids in our system.”
Mr. Griffith said the project is staying within estimates despite some unforeseen changes and some volunteer efforts.
“There will be some things added that will be done by private donors,” he said. Those costs aren’t part of taxpayers’ bills, Mr. Griffith said.
Mr. Grider, who works closely with the volunteers, said those projects will make the final product unique. He said he wanted to keep the “surprises” secret for now, though.
“South Pittsburg has always been one of those places that wants to go the extra step in anything we do,” he said. “They decided they wanted to take what was going to be a very nice building and turn it into just an incredible building.”
“We’ve got a group of people here that we’re kind of referring to now as the gym boosters,” he said. “They’ve got a bunch of different projects going on to do things to this gym to make it extra special.”
BY THE NUMBERS
Project cost: $4.8 million
Number of students: 355
Number of teachers: 30
Source: Marion County Schools
Ben Benton is a news reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He covers Southeast Tennessee and previously covered North Georgia education. Ben has worked at the Times Free Press since November 2005, first covering Bledsoe and Sequatchie counties and later adding Marion, Grundy and other counties in the northern and western edges of the region to his coverage. He was born and raised in Cleveland, Tenn., a graduate of Bradley Central High School. Benton ...
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