Timetables TBA for Eastvalley ES, Walton HS sports projects

1495 Pine Road house, Walton HS campus expansion — *A former home site on Pine Road will be the new home for Walton HS softball and tennis teams. (ECN file)*

We’ve been getting occasional questions from readers in recent weeks about the status of upcoming projects for a new Eastvalley Elementary School campus and a new softball and tennis complex at Walton High School.

We checked with the Cobb County School District, whose spokeswoman told us this week that “we do not have projected timelines for either of those projects.”

They’re both slated to be built with funding from the current Cobb Education V SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax). That’s a projected $797 million that’s being collected through the end of 2023.

Some of the initial projects underway with SPLOST V revenues are replacement projects for Harmony Leland Elementary School and King Springs Elementary School in Mableton and the new Susan Todd Pearson Middle School in Smyrna.

Eastvalley Elementary School will be relocated to the former campus of East Cobb Middle School on Holt Road, across from Wheeler High School.

An architect for the Eastvalley project was approved by the Cobb Board of Education last February, right before the COVID-19 pandemic, at a cost of $1.6 million. The project is expected to cost $31.6 million.

At the same time, the school board approved spending $5.6 million to acquire property near the Walton High School campus for new facilities for the Raiders’ softball and tennis teams.

The land acquisitions come to more than 18 acres on Bill Murdock Road, Pine Road and Providence Road, and don’t include the cost of construction.

Walton’s softball and tennis teams were displaced in 2014 for the school’s new main campus building, and they have been playing home competitions since then at Terrell Mill Park.

The school board threatened a taking by eminent domain of 15 acres on Pine Road in November 2019 after gender equity issues arose under the federal Title IX law. While the Walton baseball team has been playing on campus, the softball team was not.

Last month, Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced that the district would be seeking a sixth SPLOST referendum in November.

A district spokeswoman said this week that “all details about the ED-SPLOST VI referendum will be available once the District has listened to the community and staff to determine needs in each of our schools.”