Arkansas District Begins $140M Renovation, Construction Project
A $140-million renovation and construction project has already begun at three schools within Springdale Public Schools in Springdale, Ark. Central Junior High School and Southwest Junior High School will receive total rebuilds, while Springdale High School will receive significant renovations, according to local news.
The three legacy schools are among the oldest in the district. The facility for Central Junior High was built in 1976; Southwest Junior High in 1967; and one building on the Springdale High School campus was built in 1952, according to the district website.
“When you look at some of these facilities, they’ve been around a long time, and they have served well and they’ve done a good job, but it was time…it’s time to modernize. It’s time to create more space. It’s time to evolve facilities the same way education’s evolving,” said Trent Jones, the district’s Director of Communications.
The junior high schools will retain certain components, like their existing gyms, as artifacts to memorialize the school’s history.
“We’ve connected the past and the present and the future by just making sure that we take different kinds of artifacts and pieces of history, and we continue it on through this construction,” Jones said.
Springdale High School has already seen its BLATT building (or “Flat Building”) demolished. Its old gymnasium will also be torn down in favor of a new Physical Education complex to be built next to the football stadium.
Previously, local news reported that the Springdale School Board approved the purchase of 12 acres of land in May 2022 for Central Junior high’s construction. That story also reported that the project will be funded largely through the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds.
Renderings for all three schools are available on the Springdale Public Schools website.
About the Author
Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].