Whitfield County Board of Education members unanimously approved Tuesday a $1.935 million contract with Chattanooga construction contractor Integrated Properties LLC for a new parent drive at Eastside Elementary School.
Work on the project, which will see a complete overhaul of the current student drop-off and pick-up area outside of the school entrance at 102 Hill Road, was set to begin this week, with “substantial completion of Phase I work” to be completed no later than July 25 and “Phase II work” to be completed by Oct. 25.
Whitfield County Schools Chief Operations Officer Mark Gibson described this as a “safety project” that will help with traffic on Airport Road and Hill Road.
Gibson said Eastside Elementary’s current parent drive causes vehicles to line up on Airport Road during busy hours of the day due to limited room in front of the school’s entrance.
The system will be able to reconfigure the drive by using an “old roadbed on Hill Road” Gibson said was donated to the system by Whitfield County.
“We’d be making an extended loop where we can have cars line up in front of the school as opposed to the public roadway of Hill Road and Airport Road,” Gibson said, meaning cars will no longer block the major roadways during weekday mornings and afternoons.
Currently, the school allows eight cars at a time during dismissal, said Eastside Elementary Principal Ben Hunt.
“This will make things a whole lot easier,” he said. “It should also open up a lot of parking space for vehicles, which we really needed as well.”
Gibson said the new drive will cause less stress for parents.
“After they put the finishing touches on it and hopefully have it up and going by late October, this will make the world a whole lot better for a lot of parents around Eastside,” Gibson said.
The board members also voted to approve a final change order from Kennesaw-based Swofford Construction for the recent roof replacement and heating, ventilation and air conditioning renovations at Northwest Whitfield High School.
According to system officials, the project came in under budget, with a deduction of $12,430 in the final change order for “unused construction contignecy.” Originally, the contract was for $12.973 million with a previously authorized $421,290 change order bringing the total to $13.395 million. The final contract price was $13.382 million.