The Columbus County Board of Commissioners has approved Whiteville City Schools’ request to apply for a state grant for construction of Whiteville High School.
The school system hired LS3P architect firm to design the project. The layout includes starting 60,000 sq. ft. of new construction and 10,000 sq. ft. of renovations at the high school, according to a report from WECT.
Phase 1 includes a new cafeteria, new classrooms, a visual arts facility, two health science rooms and a culinary arts venue. Phase 2 will add more buildings as they are needed, according to Whiteville City Schools superintendent Kenny Garland. It will also add vocational facilities, and include renovations to the media center and science lab. The weight room will be torn down to add a new gym.
The project will cost about $18 million and is set to start later this year.
“When we looked at developing a plan for the current campus of Whiteville High, school safety was the top priority, and it is even more so after the incident that occurred at Parkland in February,” Garland was quoted as saying. “We have taken into consideration various resources that we currently have on that campus, the buildings that we will be able to utilize, and the buildings that we will not be able to utilize, and what we’re trying to do is to bring connectivity to the campus of Whiteville High School.