Photo courtesy of Mountain Brook Schools
The 500 wing of Mountain Brook High School being remodeled.
For Tommy Prewitt and his staff at Mountain Brook Schools, summer is always the busiest time of the year.
This summer is no exception, with a little more than $2 million worth of facilities improvements being done across five schools within the system. Prewitt, director of facilities at Mountain Brook Schools, said he and his staff typically start planning what projects need to be done the preceding fall, followed by bids being sent out during the spring with enough time for work to begin during the summer.
“Most every school has something going on,” Prewitt said.
At Mountain Brook High School, for example, the 500 wing of the building is currently undergoing massive upgrades, from new lighting and luxury vinyl tile flooring being installed to six bathrooms being remodeled. In addition, there will be new roofs put on Spartan Arena and Fine Arts Center.
The work on the 500 wing, which is the main hub for the school’s technology department, will cost an estimated $500,000 while the roofing projects at the Spartan Arena and Fine Arts Center will be approximately $260,000 and $240,000 respectively.
“It was at the end of life for both of those,” Prewitt said about the roofing projects. “The Spartan Arena roof is 20 years old, and the Fine Arts Center is a little bit older.”
Elsewhere, the school system spent an estimated $1.1 million to do work at four elementary schools, including Brookwood Forest, Cherokee Bend, Crestline and Mountain Brook Elementary.
At Cherokee Bend, new ceilings and lighting are being installed throughout the school, while at Brookwood Forest, 36 classrooms have already been repainted.
“There was just a need there,” Prewitt said about Brookwood Forest. “We haven’t done that out there in about five years.”
At Crestline Elementary, eight bathrooms are being remodeled to be more compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Sometimes, this involves relocating some fixtures,” he said.
Meanwhile, at Mountain Brook Elementary, crews have already completed putting in luxury vinyl flooring in the cafeteria, gymnasium and rear hall. Specifically, Prewitt said this project was part of an ongoing effort to eventually phase out vinyl composite flooring in the schools, which can often take a lot of work to maintain.
“With the VCT flooring, you have to strip and wax those every summer, which is pretty labor intensive,” he said. “With LVT flooring, you don’t need to do that, so that frees up our custodial staff to do other things over the summer.”
Prewitt said the school system would likely switch to all LVT flooring within the next couple of years.
The first day of school is set for Aug. 11.
