Lake County Schools Prepare for $65M in New Facilities

The five-year capital improvement plan for Lake County Schools, located in Tavares, Fla., includes $65 million in new and expanded schools, as well as $106.7 million in school renovation and modernization work. The plan covers planned projects between 2021 and 2025.

Future projects include a K–8 Minneola Area Relief school, set to cost $35 million and have a capacity of 1,200; an expansion to Villages Elementary School costing $6 million; an expansion to Windy Hill Middle School costing $12 million; and an unnamed, $11.89-million capacity project for South Lake High School.

Construction projects scheduled for completion this year include the new Lake Pointe Academy, a K–8 school covering 175,000 square feet and costing $33.8 million, set to open this fall; and expansions to Lake Minneola High School of 18 new classrooms and capacity for an additional 480 students.

Further information on the progress of these projects is available here.

The American Institute of Architects project that education construction spending (for K–12 and higher ed both) is set to drop 3.9% in 2021 but increase by 2.7% in 2022.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Quattrocchi Kwok Architects Opens New Office in Denver

    Education planning and design firm Quattrocchi Kwok Architects (QKA) recently announced that it has opened a new office in Denver, Colo., the firm’s third overall. QKA is headquartered in Santa Rosa, Calif., and runs an East Bay Area office in Oakland.

  • Deferred Maintenance Issues Growing at Universities, Gordian Reports

    U.S. colleges and universities are falling increasingly behind on facilities maintenance and repair, according to Gordian’s 13th annual State of Facilities in Higher Education report. The deferred capital renewal burden has reached $156 per gross square foot, an 8% increase over the previous year.

  • Phoenix School District Breaks Ground on New Prep Academy

    The Creighton Elementary School District near Phoenix, Ariz., recently broke ground on a campus replacement for Biltmore Preparatory Academy, according to a news release. The new space will allow the school to expand its enrollment by 50 percent for K–8 students and accommodate modern, collaborative learning styles.

  • USC Launches Major AI Initiative After $200M Gift

    The University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Calif., recently announced that it has launched a “transformational” new AI initiative thanks to a $200M gift, according to a news release. The project will leverage AI toward breakthroughs and innovations in subjects like the health sciences, business, security, and the arts.