This week the Gaston County Board of Education selected a contractor to build Belmont’s new middle school. They selected Beam Construction out of Cherryville to head the job with a winning bid of $33.54 million. They will build the school which will be about 155,000 square feet of space for kids to learn and grow.
Beam Construction has been around for almost 90 years and they have done many projects in the area. They worked previously on the Pleasant Ridge Elementary School in Gastonia which opened in August of 2017. Other projects include educational and healthcare facilities in both North and South Carolina including Gaston College.
Beam Construction had the lowers of the seven bids that came in by the October 9th deadline. The next step is for the county to sell school bonds in November to pay for the project. The full bond sale is for $60 million to help fund the building of this school and two others. Voters approved the bond package, a total of $250 million back in May.
The new school will replace the current building which has been in use for almost 80 years (the oldest in the county). The old school will remain in place at least until the new building is completed as they reside at two different sites. The new school will reside on a 78-acre parcel next to South Point High School on South Point Road.
The 78-acre parcel will also be home to many recreational facilities that will also be for the use of the city of Belmont. They are providing $400,000 of the funding in exchange for long-term use of the facilities. This will benefit the entire community.
The school is expected to resemble the new Stanley Middle School which had the same designer as this project, LS3P. The school should support a capacity of 1,000 students. Groundbreaking is expected to take place in March with the school expected to open for the 2021-2022 school year.
To read the full article, check it out in the Gaston Gazette.