CLEVELAND, Tenn. - Cleveland City Schools officials, including members of the parent advisory council, recently took a sneak-peek tour of Cleveland High's Raider Arena, now under construction and expected to be completed in March.
The main arena building's interior is now in "the dry," said Dr. Martin Ringstaff, director of Cleveland City Schools. That achievement is a key benchmark for the project, allowing for the next major steps of installing bleachers and wooden floors, he said.
Cleveland High School principal Autumn O'Bryan, center, offers a guided tour of Raider Arena to, from left, city school board member George Meacham and parent advisory council members Holli Collins and Tonya Cook. Construction of the facility is projected to be completed in early March.
Crews clean up at the end of the end of the day inside the recently enclosed Raider Arena at Cleveland High School. Construction of the facility, which will have bleacher seating for 2,700 people, is projected to be complete in early March."I feel good about where the project is at," Ringstaff said.
All interior concrete work has been completed and the facility's elevator is installed, while the installation of the arena's scoreboards is underway, according to a Nov. 16 Cleveland City Schools report for the Cleveland City Council.
Several items were designed to offer flexibility and underscore a sense of school community, Cleveland High Principal Autumn O'Bryan said.
The home side includes a small student bleacher section behind the basketball backboard, while mezzanines and windowed classrooms overlook the playing area from the upper deck of the arena, O'Bryan said.
She said the mezzanines are good spaces for pep bands. The upper-deck classrooms will be furnished with tables that can easily be rearranged for presentations or other needs, she said.
However, the home cheering section has a special place in the school's heart, O'Bryan said.
"We're rowdy Raiders," she said, citing a firm demand for a student section that recalled the intimacy of the high school's landmark Raider Dome, which closed in December 2013 and was demolished.
"It's been a little bit hard to watch the dome come down, but that's OK now that I see what they're doing," said parent advisory council member Holli Collins, a former Cleveland Raider basketball player. "It is top of the line. I can't imagine a high school being any nicer than this."
Raider Arena will have a bleacher seating capacity of 2,700 and capacity to seat 500 more, said Hal Taylor, supervisor of maintenance and transportation for the city school system. The Raider Dome had a bleacher seating capacity of 1,500.
Wall to wall, the floor area is about 120 feet long and 100 feet wide, Taylor said.
O'Bryan said Raider Arena will not be just a place to watch sports, but a core piece of wellness learning for the student body.
Since the loss of Raider Dome nearly two years ago, physical education classes have been held in the campus' volleyball and wrestling gyms and students have had to change in classrooms and storage areas, she said.
"The school has been flexible and the kids have been great," said Gina Allison, a member of the parent advisory council.
Paul Leach is based in Cleveland. Email him at paul.leach.press@gmail.com.