Supervisors tour new Colonial Elementary site

By Aila Boyd

aboyd@ourvalley.org

All five members of the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors visited the site where the new Colonial Elementary School will be located last Tuesday.

The visit followed the board’s monthly meeting and was led by Jim Whitten, the county’s capital projects manager.

At the time of the tour, 90 percent of the site was on the first stage of grading with the actual building site at its final grade.

The grading on the site is being completed by F. Clayton Plecker & Sons. The Botetourt County Economic Development Authority recently negotiated a deal with the contractor to bring the entire site brought up to sub-grade, so that construction will be able to commence. Whitten noted that by having the contractor go ahead and bring the site to sub-grade, a large portion of the grading work that would have otherwise been required later on will be avoided. Originally, he said, the sub-grading had been planned for phase two of the process, but has now been rolled into phase one. “This means that when G&H comes, they’ll just show up and start pouring concreate,” he said. “They will be doing the driveways, parking lots, and the actual building.”

As of last Tuesday, Whitten said that the hope was to have the site at sub-grade within three weeks. He cautioned that the three-week hope might not be realistic by noting that it started raining the day after sub-grading was started.

The county also received notification from Spectrum Design, the company that designed the school, that the revised design will be completed in the near future. A plan review will follow.

The Economic Development Authority has agreed to accept a bid submitted by G&H Contracting, meaning that the company will serve as the project’s general contractor.

If all goes according to plan, the school will open in time for the 2020-2021 school year.