By ELLEN KOLMAN - ekolman@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon
JEFFERSON —
Jefferson Area Local School district students and administrators have a lot of new things to look forward to throughout this school year.
“By Oct. 1, the athletic field house will be completed,” said Doug Hladek, district superintendent. “All of the brick work is done, the workers are painting the inside, and now they are laying sidewalk.”
The 12,000-square-foot field house is adjacent to the Falcon Pride Stadium, just north of the high school. The field house includes weightlifting and wrestling facilities for the district’s athletes, as well as concession and storage space for the Jefferson Falcons Athletic Boosters, Hladek said.
Public restrooms, showers and locker facilities also will be part of the field-house construction, which is being funded by the bond issue for new schools, which was approved by the district’s voters in 2005 as part of the Ohio School Facilities Commission program.
A new 6,000-square-foot school board office building is also on the horizon, and bid packages will be going out this week, Hladek said.
“The bid packages are due back Sept. 21, and the building is slated to be completed spring 2011,” he said. “The building will house board offices, public restrooms, music boosters concession stand, a ticket booth and tennis storage.”
This building will have the same look as the other buildings on the Jefferson High School campus.
“Also to be completed this week is an exit-only driveway on the junior-high side to aid drop-off and pickup traffic,” Hladek said.
Completed projects include six new tennis courts; a sidewalk that spans from Poplar Street all the way to the new Jefferson Elemen-tary School; an expanded parking area on the Junior High School side, to include 160 parking spaces; an emergency-access driveway around the school; and a 3,500-square-foot storage building behind the high school, for maintenance, athletic and fine-arts items.
