By JOEL PHELPS | arkadelphian.com
The new Peake Elementary School in Arkadelphia is hard to miss. Anyone who’s driven along Pine or Caddo streets in the past several months has taken notice of the massive project going up on the grounds of the former elementary school building.
The Arkadelphia Board of Education was given an update Tuesday on the progress of the $26 million facility, which is expected to be ready for students and teachers by the fall 2024 semester. Clayton Vaden of Lewis Architects Engineers provided the brief update ahead of the school board’s January meeting.
Recent snow and rain has caused a delay in the installation of a transformer and a gas line. The transformer is on the site, and crews had been scheduled to begin digging the gas line before the weather. Once those two projects are complete, HVAC can be installed and “everything should really start taking off,” Vaden said. “Schedule-wise, we’re in good shape.”
Vader showed the school board a slideshow of photographs from the campus interior, offering a glimpse of the front entrance, media center, cafeteria and gymnasium.
By May, Vaden predicts that crews will be wrapping up some interior projects like tiling, and by June they’ll be “fine-tuning” the aesthetics.
Vaden anticipated that teachers will have “plenty of time” to get their classrooms in order ahead of the new school year.
The new campus will house students in grades kindergarten through 4th grade. Goza Middle School will then serve students in grades 5-8, and Arkadelphia High School will remain a 9-12 campus.
Blueprints for the school were finalized in October 2022. The original contract with Nabholz included a $155,000 contingency fee. As of Jan. 9 there was $14,044 left in the project’s contingency fund.
Construction of the new Peake campus is a product of a voter-approved millage increase to improve facilities and make local teacher salaries competitive with other school districts.
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