Construction continues on blackbox and freshman gym

The new gym in the freshman wing still needs a few finishing touches before it’s ready to use. The gyn will include basketball and volleyball courts.
Photo by Amy Pacas

The new gym in the freshman wing still needs a few finishing touches before it’s ready to use. The gyn will include basketball and volleyball courts. Photo by Amy Pacas

Blue Springs South High School is currently having constuction done on the building for the blackbox performnce space. It is expected to be completed in the spring. Photo by Isabelle Mulvaney

By Emily Wilson

The new gym in the freshman wing still needs a few finishing touches before it’s ready to use. The gyn will include basketball and volleyball courts.
Photo by Amy Pacas

Assistant Editor

As the 2019 school year is underway, so is construction at Blue Springs South. The school has been a construction site for over a year now, but there is still much to be done including a black box theater, parking lots, and small aspects of the freshman wing that was mainly completed last year.

The biggest part of the construction to be completed this year is the black box theater. A black box theater is a small, multi-purpose event space (about the size of the current small gym) that could host anything from the fall play to teacher meetings to many kinds of practices such as touch of silver and ROTC. In addition to the black box, there will also be two new classrooms and storage space added in by the current performing arts center. The lobby of the PAC is being redone as well. During the construction period the PAC will remain open.                                                  

Assistant principal Ryan Gettings says that if weather permits, the black box theater is slated to be completed by March 2020. With all the additions on the north side of the building, a large section of the parking lot has been fenced off.  The fencing is something that will more than likely be there right up to the very end of construction. Once the construction team is in a spot where they can clear it and they have the time available to do it, they are planning to redo the north parking lot.

“You’ve probably noticed on the north side there’s the area that looks like the parking lot is brand new or redone. And then there’s a big area that looks like it wasn’t attached at all. The construction team will come back in and mill that and do all of that one,” Gettings said. “We know, it’s got to be done, what’s going to be done, but it’s probably going to be towards the end of that black box timeline.”

In addition to the major construction starting on the north end of the building, construction is finishing up on the south end. Throughout the year, worker have been finishing everything from adding TVs and murals to the walls to setting the new gym floor.

Gettings says that the new gym should be opening for PE classes later this month. The gym was scheduled to be ready for the 2019-2020 school year, but issues with the temperature have caused the floor to not set correctly and pushed the end of the construction back further. The bleachers have recently been installed.

Another part of the freshman wing that has taken more time to complete than scheduled was Mr. Zwahlen’s classroom, Room #1023. His room failed to pass inspection because of an electrical issue. Though he hasn’t taught in his new room for most of the school year, he has finally gotten the green light to be in his room.