By Dewey Terrill  and Photos by Javon George

JC POST

The new Junction City High School construction process is moving forward toward a long-term completion target of August 2021.

The Superintendent for Hutton Construction, Cody Simon, said they received a building permit last week, and that allowed work to begin on footings for the building. “We’re going to get into some really deep footings that we’ve got under some of the mechanical areas first to get those done and back filled. Then we’re going to take off with some other crews and really knock out the footings and under slab.”

Simon estimated some of the pre-cast walls would begin going up in late October or early November. “That’s the auditorium, auxiliary gymnasium and wrestling room have pre-cast panels. We need to get those walls up first just because of how this structure builds around those areas.”

Site preparation began in March and included the movement of 411,000 cubic yards of dirt to level the site for the building, parking lot and football stadium. “So that’s largely complete. The contractor still only has to mix some sub-grade underneath the asphalt parking lots in the next few weeks.

Along with the site there has also been work on site utilities. Simon stated that mile of pipe have been buried, “for sanitary sewer, storm sewer, water and eventually gas to the site. Site utilities are about 75% complete and that installation will continue through the fall.

In about two weeks there will be a large excavation in the area of the main mechanical room, said Simon. “There’s a cooling tower pit that’s about 20 feet deep, 10-feet wide each way. We need to get those footings, that underground structure in first simply because of the size of the excavation it’ going to take to do that safely and back fill it.”

The new high school site is located on the north side of K-18 Highway on the west side of Junction City.