Published: June 21, 2008 10:47 pm            

Planned DHS athletic and wellness facility hits snag

A real estate agent might say location is a determining factor in the value of property and its suitability for building. At Dalton High, it’s proven to be a setback for the school’s planned multi-purpose athletic and wellness facility.

“They’re dealing with bad soil conditions,” said contractor Allan Felker of Felker Construction, whose company was awarded the project. “The architect and engineers are looking at what to do to remedy the bad soil situation.”

Felker said the location next to the fieldhouse on campus “used to be a trash dump” and that when his company removed poles from the site recently there were chunks of concrete and wood down in the holes.

Felker did not comment on any costs that he thought might be incurred to stabilize the site and make it worthy for a foundation. The permitting process, which director of maintenance and operations Palmer Griffin said would be “atrocious” in the May board of education meeting due to watershed issues, has been completed. Felker said he had the appropriate permits in hand.

His firm will be given 180 days to finish the project when given the go-ahead from the architect. Griffin said in the May meeting he expected the facility to be finished in November or December of this year.

Board chairman Steve Williams confirmed “there’s a lot of stuff buried in there,” going back to the high school’s construction in the mid-1970s in the old Happy Top section of Dalton.

“You couldn’t get away with that these days,” he said. “The architect tells us he has designed it so that it won’t take much more time or money, and that there will not be a significant change in the cost. But we didn’t know (about the soil problem) back at the May meeting.”

At that board session the cost for the facility was projected at $1.29 million, then in June the amount had changed to $1.368 million and was approved. Sixty percent of the total project cost will come from the school system and 40 percent from private donations.

Williams said the cost of the project had not risen, but that the higher figure included architectural fees and permitting.

“For safety reasons, it’s time to update (the facilities),” maintained DHS principal Debbie Freeman. “The school is 31 years old.”

A tour of the present athletic areas revealed a bleacher revamping project under way in the gym by vocational students, and although the swimming pool water is clear and inviting, many of the fixtures are laden with rust. The school’s present weight room is also small for the many athletes and other students who want to use it, Freeman said.

Freeman claimed that when the new 8,500-square-foot weight room inside the multi-purpose facility is finished, it will be in use from 14 to 16 hours a day.

The new athletic structure will cover 15,000 total square feet, said director of maintenance and operations Palmer Griffin.

Included will be a weight room, batting cages, walking track, cardio room with stationary bikes and elliptical trainers, and space for court activities like volleyball. Nets may be used for the golf team to practice, and there will be 6,500 square feet of artificial turf outside the weight room.

“As far as curriculum goes,” said Freeman, “I’m working to shift the focus from PE (physical education) to a wellness center. There’s been talk about us making that shift.”

Input for the expansion at DHS has come from parent focus groups and faculty focus groups, plus ideas from engineering students. Freeman said input from those sessions was presented to superintendent Orval Porter.

The conversations in the focus groups began, said Freeman, around the need for extra space.

Some in the community have wondered why DHS merits a new athletic facility when students are still being taught in modular units, which many call trailers. There are 19 modular units in the Dalton Public School system, three at Dalton High and 16 throughout the elementary system.

There are plans for 54 additional classrooms in the system: 14 at Brookwood Elementary, 16 at Blue Ridge Elementary, 14 at Park Creek Elementary and 10 at Dalton Middle School.

“The new classrooms will go a long way toward getting kids out of the modular units,” said Griffin, “and into traditional classrooms.”

The school board approved $15.8 million in capital spending for fiscal year 2009 at its June meeting. The funds will cover the expansion plans at several schools. Dalton Public Schools spokeswoman Deana Farmer said all the 54 classrooms will be open this August for the start of school.

A new classroom building at DHS, funded separately from the athletic facility and to be sited at the other end of the high school proper, will include a culinary arts program and a new horticulture program.

“For industry certification (through the state Department of Education) we need a new facility for culinary arts,” Freeman said.

In her second year leading DHS, she said the building projects have been in the planning stages since before the last school Education Local Options Sales Tax (ELOST), which passed in September 2006.

The classrooms for Dalton High were “scheduled to open in the fall of 2009,” Williams said, “but Dr. Porter has told me it will be closer to January of 2010.”

DHS Quarterback Club president Mark Joyce said that the booster organization is “definitely” providing funds to help with construction of the athletic-wellness structure, but he declined to say how much.

“It is multi-use,” he said, “but it is also an indoor football practice facility with indoor turf for inclement weather where our guys can come in and go full force in the building, and get out of the heat if we have to.”

He added that the Quarterback Club and school board “got together on it and thought it was great for the athletic department.”

Joyce said other school systems have similar facilities, such as Buford High School in Gwinnett County. A member of the board of directors of the Buford High athletic booster club, Thomas Walsh, said their facility, which cost around $200,000, was built entirely with fundraising events and that no school system monies were used.

“It started out as our competitive cheerleading squad needing a place to practice,” he said, “and then in the spring the baseball team used it when it was rainy and cold outside.”

Walsh explained that the facility has artificial turf and nets so pitching machines can be utilized, and also accommodates wrestling, but not a weight room. To his knowledge, the 2-year-old structure has not been used by the football team, but could house the offensive squad to run plays in inclement outdoor conditions.

Another Buford High athletic booster club board member, White Simpson, said the multi-purpose athletic facility there was approximately 11,000 square feet in size. Buford High won the 2007 Class AA state championship in football with a 15-0 record, according to the school’s Web site.

“I think it’s going to be a great thing for the community,” said Williams of the multi-purpose facility. “Wellness is becoming more and more of a big deal. This is for all the students.”

        

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