New High School On Course To Be $600,000 Under Budget | Winchester Star

BERRYVILLE, Va – The building is still full of workmen, and boxes of screws and reels of electrical wire, but the new Clarke County High School is edging up on completion. rnrnSubstantial completion will occur by Jan. 23. After that, general contractor Howard Shock­ey & Sons will begin completing odds and ends; school personnel will train on how to run the heating, cooling, electri­cal and other systems in the building; the school will get a final cleaning; and by March 23, it is scheduled to be turned over to the Clarke School Board. rnrnFormer School Board member Robi­na Rich Bouffault, who has been head­ing the group’s construction committee, said in her final report on the project that the building is on schedule and approx­imately $600,000 under budget. She invited everyone to a special rib­bon cutting at 11 a.m. on April 28. rnrnShockey’s bid for the project came in at $23.3 million in June 2010. The sur­prisingly low bid left $7.3 million in pro­ject funds, which the School Board plans to use to renovate the existing high school for use as an elementary school. rnrnCastelli said fixtures and furniture are scheduled for delivery in May and June, and the school is expected to be ready to receive its first students next August. rnrnThe new building covers about 162,000 square feet, compared to the 67,000 square feet in the existing high school. It sits on a 57.8 acre section of land at Mosby Boulevard and West Main Street. rnrnHe said the new facility is designed to handle 884 students according to Virginia Department of Education standards. However, the “core facilities”” – the media center