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The Hot Springs School District expects to complete its $49.7 million supercampus project by Aug. 1, wrapping up a yearslong overhaul before students return for the new school year.

Superintendent Mike Hernandez said Tuesday that most of the work is complete, with crews finishing a covered walkway between Hot Springs Junior Academy and Hot Springs World Class High School and preparing the district’s new multipurpose gymnasium and tornado safe room for final approval.

Teachers return Tuesday, and students begin classes Aug. 4.

The project’s first phase centered on the new high school, which opened last fall. The $37.8 million, 140,000-square-foot, three-story building serves about 750 to 800 students in grades 10-12.

Hernandez said the remaining piece of that phase is the awning connecting the junior academy to the school. Most of the walkway is finished, he said, and crews are completing the section between the safe room and high school.

“I think it’ll be better this year,” he said, referring to the covered walkway. “Obviously, last year, students were having to move from high school to junior high in a construction zone, and we had a lot of kids having to walk closer to Emory Street. Now that it’s completed, if they do have to (move), they’ll be on the backside of campus going through the awning area.”

Later phases of the project included demolishing the former high school and replacing it with athletics facilities and additional parking.

A new multipurpose field will accommodate soccer, football and youth sports practices. Hernandez said community groups will also be able to use the field.

“There was a practice field where the old high school was that a lot of the community used for pee-wee practice,” he said. “Now that is basically rebuilt on top where the current new field is. It’ll be used for soccer practices, football practices, pee-wee and community use, just like they use our downstairs field now.”

Six new tennis courts are complete, including two striped for pickleball. The courts will also be available for community use, Hernandez said.

The district also added permanent shot put and discus areas for track and field athletes.

“We used to have that in other locations,” he said. “So we have a shot put ring for track. The top field also functions as our discus ring for track meets, and you can see the discus ring is up there and set in a permanent location so that way when we have events, we no longer have to throw them uphill like we’ve been doing during practice.”

The new 14,100-square-foot gymnasium will double as a Federal Emergency Management Agency-rated tornado safe room. Hernandez said crews are cleaning the building and applying a final coating to the gym floor.

The district is working with the Garland County Office of Emergency Management to ensure the safe room’s doors automatically unlock during tornado warnings. A similar system is used at Oaklawn STEM Magnet School and tested monthly, he said.

“That’s the last part,” Hernandez said. “We’re just making sure that that process works, but it should really be ready by the time school starts.”

A new parking lot between the safe room and football field has also been completed, adding about 23 spaces to the campus.

“This last couple of years, we’ve been dealing with the parking at games and all that kind of stuff,” he said. “The parking lot was finished and should have been striped as of (Monday) night. That actually will add on the backside in between the safe room and football fields.”

The district completed the project within its $49.7 million budget, Hernandez said. Savings from the final phase were redirected toward replacing damaged concrete on the visitors’ side of the football stadium and installing fencing around the field.

He said the district avoided major delays and sharp price increases in part because it established a guaranteed maximum price early in the process with construction manager Hill & Cox Corp.

“Everything pretty much stayed on track. The only thing we were worried about was with all the different price changes and stuff like that, that we get caught up in that. We really didn’t. … The big cost driver was in the new regulations. Anytime you build an annex or a new building, you have to build a tornado safe room,” he said.

“And so that was a big cost driver. It was part of the budget, but it was an increase in cost. We’re glad to be able to do it, have that for our students and our community, but that was a change right when we started this construction project a few years ago.”

The supercampus project began after voters approved a 4.4-mill increase in 2016. Construction on the junior academy, which includes Trojan Arena, began in 2018.

Hernandez said the district will now evaluate the long-term needs of Oaklawn STEM Magnet School and Main Street Visual and Performing Arts Magnet School, its two oldest campuses.

“It does feel good to see how we did what we set out to do and kind of making it to where there were very few transitions in the district,” he said.

“You can go to an elementary (from primary through sixth grade) and then make one transfer to the 7-12 campus and not have a lot of transition. … This was kind of the culmination of all those projects, and then obviously some boundary financing and things like that, to completely reshape the district.”

A covered walkway connecting Hot Springs Junior Academy and Hot Springs World Class High School is shown Tuesday. (The Sentinel-Record/Thomas Buckman)Hot Springs School District’s new multipurpose gymnasium and tornado safe room is shown Tuesday. (The Sentinel-Record/Thomas Buckman)Hot Springs School District’s new multipurpose gymnasium and storm shelter is shown Tuesday. (The Sentinel-Record/Thomas Buckman)The Hot Springs School District’s new multipurpose athletic field is shown Tuesday on the former high school site. The field is part of the $49.7 million campus project expected to be completed by Aug. 1. (The Sentinel-Record/Thomas Buckman)