$4.6 million earmarked for gyms at GSHS

$4.6 million earmarked for gyms at GSHS
By John Mullen
Gulf Shores is going to spend more than $4.6 million to spruce up the gym at Gulf Shores High School and build a second gym south of the current one. The council voted unanimously to fund the project during its June 22 meeting.
“We could not be more excited about the approval that you’re taking under consideration this evening,” School Board President Kevin Corcoran said.
“We inherited a grossly inadequate scenario largely as it relates to our female athletes. We recognized that discrepancy and that inadequacy right away during our first school year. We promoted this to the city and only with your generosity we were able to do what you are discussing today. We feel like this is a wonderful, wonderful addition that will last for years to come no matter what our plans are for the future as far as capital improvements.”
Economic Development Coordinator detailed the upcoming work which included two resolutions. One to refurbish the current gym by adding several locker rooms and freshening the look in the gym itself. One was to award the bid for the new gym to Rolin Construction for about $4.6 million.
A second amended a contract with Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood for design and engineering services for $43,000 bringing the total of that contract to $393,000.
“We went into this project with two major goals,” Phelps told the council.
“The existing high school gym and locker room facility has been not really touched a whole lot since 1998 whenever it was originally built. You’ve got a lot of spaces in there that are now really inadequate for the usage that we see there today. As well as some areas that are no longer used for what they were designed for. We felt like it could be used in a more efficient way. Generally speaking, the facility itself within the existing gym needs a little bit of love.”
This is phase two of an improvement plan for the city schools that was funded with $8.8 million in 2019. The first phase concentrated mainly on transportation issues by separating the elementary and middle school car lines and separating the bus drop off area from those lines as well.
Phase two will include a new practice gym, athletic practice training space, locker room additions and renovations, lobby and ticketing area, office and restroom expansion, refinishing the existing gym floors, new bleachers, graphics, plumbing, and new fire protection systems in the existing gymnasium.
The existing gymnasium has two locker rooms for boys’ varsity and JV basketball teams, a boys’ PE locker room, a girls’ PE locker room and a single locker room for girls’ basketball and volleyball. A room formerly used as a weight room is now mainly used for storage, Phelps said.
“There’s no dedicated space there for the girls’ sports,” Phelps said. “The other glaring omission to us was there are no visitor locker rooms whatsoever. And no areas for athletic training for athletes to come in and get treatment, to get ankles taped before games or any other treatment that they may need. Within this existing space, you’ll see the new program that we’ve redesigned here.”
Once completed, the current space will be utilized to have several new locker rooms for girls’ sports, a wrestling locker room and an athletic training area all within the current gym’s footprint.
“We’ve added a boys’ wrestling locker room which we have not previously had and it’s one of the fastest-growing sports that we have,” Phelps said. “We’ve reconfigured some previous storage space and provided boys’ PE locker rooms which will also double as the visiting team locker room for all boys’ competitions. We’ve taken that previous weight room and converted it into a dedicated girls’ varsity volleyball locker room, a locker room for cheerleading, an athletic training suite, a dedicated girls’ JV volleyball locker room, a girls’ JV basketball locker room, a girls’ varsity basketball locker room. And like we have on the boys’ side a girls’ PE locker room that will also double as a girls’ visiting team locker room as well.”
Out in the gym itself a lot of fresh paint and logos for the new school system will be a prominent part of the project there.
“We’ll be updating the gymnasium with new paint schemes and graphics and update it with our new existing city schools branding,” Phelps said. “It’s time for new bleachers as well as the new paint scheme. To really round out the existing gymnasium improvement we’ll be completely redoing the floor with this graphics and a new coat and seal on the floor to get it up to today’s standards.”
The new gymnasium will provide more practice space for the school’s teams but will also be regulation size and able to have games as well.
“This practice gym will be lined with a full regulation sized basketball court, a full regulation-sized volleyball court,” Phelps said. “It can also fit two wrestling mats within the facility, it will have a drop-down curtain that can separate courts so you’ll have two half courts on either side of the net where teams can practice in conjunction with one another or we could even potentially use this for a portion of our youth league recreation games as well.”
The front of this gym will also serve as an entrance to both gyms and have a lobby, ticket booth, restrooms and concessions.
“With the new addition, we’re adding a new main entry into the facility for all athletic events within the gym and new gym as well,” Phelps said. “The idea would be that if you are going to a varsity basketball game in the existing gym and you need to go to the restroom or you need to get concessions you would come back into this area that everyone would use that common space as the main lobby.”
During the meeting, the council:
• Awarded a bid for heavy equipment rentals 1 Source Power & Equipment, Herc Rentals, Robertsdale RentAll, Sunbelt, Beard Equipment, United Rentals, and Ahern; based upon the lowest daily, weekly, and monthly rental rate and availability. There is $15,000 in the Public Works budget for the rentals. The agreement is for one year and the city has an option of renewing each year for two additional years.
• Appointed two people to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. Those are Kerry Dey, a fifth-grade teacher at Gulf Shores Elementary School and Gulf Shores Police Community Service Officer Josh Coleman.