The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday approved spending $15.66 million to build a new Lassiter High School gym, but it’s going to cost a good bit more than what was initially anticipated.
That’s because the original planning for the new gym was in 2012, including cost estimates, according to John Adams, deputy superintendent for the Cobb County School District.
He told school board members at a work session earlier Thursday afternoon that the original estimate was $10.8 million.
But since then, the Cobb school district has increased its seating specifications for new high school gyms, from 2,500 to 3,000. Annual construction inflation of six percent also was worked into the new figure.
The new gym criteria is being applied to the ongoing construction of a new gym and performing arts complex at Walton High School costing $31.7 million, as well as the new $24 million gym and theatre that opened at Pope High School in January.
The board later approved unanimously a bid to award the contract to R.K. Redding Construction Inc. of Bremen to build the new Lassiter gym, which will replace the original gym that opened with the school in 1980.
Adams said the cost could have exceeded $16 million, and “we think this is a good price for this gym.”
The project, which Adams said is expected to be completed by November 2019, is included in the Cobb Ed-SPLOST IV notebook.
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