The new school is intended to replace Southwestern and the shuttered Robertson elementary schools.

Plans are progressing after a lengthy period of indecision and delays. The main contention was how many schools to build, and the poor economy led to a one-school model.

The Planning Commission approved the 100 Pioneer Road site in early December 2011, and the purchase — 47 acres for $564,000 — was finalized in July.

Before last week, the board’s last item of business on the new school was the awarding of a contract for early site work, which went to Newport News’ Wolf Contractors.

Blueridge’s was the lowest construction bid, last Thursday’s meeting heard. “We are getting quality work,” board Chairman Michael Debranski commented, noting that the firm’s familiarity with the district’s needs after Creekside and Hillpoint should minimize change orders.

“We are definitely excited about working again with them.”

According to an earlier project update to the board by RRMM Architects Chief Executive Officer Duane M. Harver, the 700-pupil school will incorporate pre-K, kindergarten and first and second grades on the first floor, and third, fourth and fifth grades on the second floor. Special education classrooms would be on both levels.

Plans call for learning nooks on the eastern and western ends of both levels, a media center open between both levels, and adjoining gymnasium and lunchroom, which would open into a single space.

The school’s front entrance will face Pioneer Road, and cars and buses will have separate entrances.

Outside, the school will include 70 parking spaces, an area for future additional spaces, and overflow parking; hard-surface, first- to fifth-grade and pre-school play areas; a space for field games; and soccer and softball fields.

The design is modeled on Hillpoint, but with fewer classrooms.

Meanwhile, School Board members last week also voted unanimously to re-allocate $1 million from the 2013-14 capital improvement budget, which had been earmarked for renovations when the board moves to the city’s current human resources building, to buy furniture and equipment for the new elementary school.

Source: Suffolk News Herald (https://www.suffolknewsherald.com/2013/01/14/contract-awarded-for-new-school/)

With Tidewater Community College set to open Monday, workers went into high gear Friday trying to get the streets and sidewalks ready for student traffic.

“It’s crowded now, and it will just be more so” on Monday, said Louis Biro, supervisor for Wolf Contractors Inc., one of several subcontractors on the project.

Biro watched as a jackhammer mounted on an excavation vehicle tried unsuccessfully to jolt loose a section of trolley track so that new blue plastic pipe could be laid beneath the street. He’d have to call in another piece of equipment – one with torches that would melt the steel, he said.

Large, square metal slabs on the tarmac cover holes as deep as 10 feet, said Hickman. The metal clunks repeatedly as vehicles cross them.

Huge chunks of uplifted tarmac lay in heaps like jagged mountains on a relief map along the west side of the street. The sidewalks are fenced off with orange plastic, and pedestrians peck their way painstakingly over rough terrain at street edge, trying to avoid the slippery mud slick on one side and the zig-zagging cars, trucks and construction vehicles on the other.

Don Smith crossed a plywood bridge across newly poured concrete in front of the new TCC building and headed for his car.

“This will be nice,” said the 40-year-old Norfolk man who’ll start classes at TCC on Monday. “I’m real patient because I know it will be nice.”

Smith, beginning his third semester, hopes to teach eventually. He quit his job at a car dealership to pursue his education.

“Norfolk’s gotta do it in little bits and pieces . . . keep up with the Smiths and the Joneses,” said Smith, explaining that competition among cities on the East Coast is keen. He likes the urban setting for the college.

“It’s a neat environment to study – shopping, libraries, food” nearby.

Smith bent sideways as a beer truck slid past. Then he looked up and down the street.

“The bad news is, I got a $35 parking ticket last week,” he said. “Parked in a crosswalk. Couldn’t see it for the mud, the lines were washed out, and it was raining.”

Construction workers lay bricks for a sidewalk in front of a new TCC building in downtown Norfolk. Classes are to begin in the new college facilities on Monday.

Source: The Virginian-Pilot (https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1997/vp970104/01040349.htm)