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Brantley Construction building new middle school for Charleston County
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
Brantley Construction Co. of Charleston has started work on a $18.7 million contract to build a new middle school on Dorchester Road in North Charleston that will serve as part of Charleston County School District’s plan for helping middle school students transition to higher learning.
The school district hopes the new middle school can also straighten out some of the persistent confusion experienced by parents and students that started with school consolidation in the late 1960s.
Brantley Construction Co. of Charleston was awarded the project in January and began clearing the 28.3-acre site last month.
The district’s 2005-2009 Capital Improvement program calls for the creation of a two-story, 91,000-square-foot structure that will eventually be able to accommodate 650 students in three distinct academic wings.
Ray Maher, vice president of Brantley Construction, which previously built the kindergarten through eighth-grade facilities on Daniel Island, said the new school in Constituent District 4 is expected to welcome its first students in September 2009.
“It’s really the perfect job for us, and we’re delighted to have been chosen to play a part in its construction,” Maher said.
“In addition to its value to the school district, this project comes along at a time when the construction industry as a whole is hurting due to the slowdown in the economy,” he said.
“Right now, we’ve probably got about 35 people on site, but hopefully we’ll employ upwards of 200, through our subcontractors and so forth, once construction gets fully under way.
“Our objective is to get as many people working out there as we can,” Maher said.
The new middle school was designed by Andrew Wilson and Eric Synder of Glick/Boehm and Associates Inc. of Charleston.
Fixing a problem
Bill Lewis, the district’s executive director of facilities improvements, said the seeds for the new facility were actually sown back in 1968, when Charleston area schools were consolidated into one district.
“Back when the school district was first put together, in the 1940s and 1950s, our feeder schools served students grades one through seven, and our high schools served students grades eight through 12,” Lewis said.
“We established our three existing middle schools with the subsequent consolidation, but with their creation was also the start of a kind of misalignment, within the district, that became more challenging as the years went on,” he said.
The problem, Lewis explained, was that after consolidation, it was difficult for parents or just about anybody else to fathom why students from “elementary school A” moved on to “middle school B.” The new middle school will provide a more natural order to how students move from facility to facility during their primary and secondary school years.
The district also thinks the new facility will help maintain a positive educational climate.
“The new middle school is part of our Charleston County Plan for Excellence, particularly its section relating to safe and secure schools,” Lewis said.
“By building an additional middle school, we’ll be able to reduce class sizes and provide students with a more intimate environment in which to learn,” he said.
Lewis said the goal is to provide parents and students with “choice” within the district, “So we won’t have to continue spending money through No Child Left Behind to bus kids to other parts of the county.”
“Again, our strategy is to improve performance in all our middle schools and make them the facilities of choice within the county,” he said.
Fast-track construction
Maher said the company has been clearing trees and removing the slabs and foundations of two former buildings on the site.
“It’s a good sized project, but one that is moving along well thanks to the foresight of the school district and its design team,” he said.
“Once the preliminary work is completed, construction should proceed quickly, thanks to the
district’s decision to use steel frame rather than concrete, which tends to require a much, much slower construction process.
“I really appreciate everything the district has done to streamline the process,” Maher added. “They’ve really come up with a state-of-the-art facility for us to build.”
Lewis said the location, fronting Dorchester Road, also makes a statement about the school district’s commitment to middle school education.
“We wanted it to be a prominent part of the community,” he said. “And we’re also excited to have it right next door to the Dorchester Road branch of the
Charleston County Library System and across the street from the fire station. We think there are real good synergies there.”
Given its location, the school will require the creation of a new turning lane on Dorchester Road as well as the addition of a new traffic light at what will soon be a new three-way intersection, Maher said.
“But I expect there to be minimal construction delays, if any, related to the creation of the entrance and egress to the new school,” Maher said. “I take my hat off to the Charleston County Schools facility department for designing something to be built on a fast track.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@scbiznews.com.
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