Board eyes $6.1M renovations for Hickory Hills Elementary

MARIETTA — Marietta City Schools will soon begin adding to its already extensive construction projects.

This week, the Marietta school board indicated it intends to move forward with approval of a contract for R.K. Redding Construction, Inc. of Bremen to start pre-construction planning for updates to Hickory Hills Elementary and the Marietta Center for Advanced Academics.

The estimated cost for the Hickory Hills renovations is $6.1 million and the cost for the MCAA updates is projected to be $3.6 million, with funds for the projects to come from the district's SPLOST fund. 

The district is also set to award a contract of nearly $100,000 to Pride Roofing of Lithonia for repairs to the roof of the media center at Marietta Middle School. 

Chuck Gardner, chief operations officer for the district, told the board at its Tuesday work session construction at Hickory Hills and MCAA happen during the summer of 2023. He said while some minor work on the schools could begin before the summer, no major construction will start until school lets out. 

The renovations planned for Hickory Hills will include updates to the school's kitchen, though the extent of those updates have not yet been determined, Gardner said. 

"Beyond that, it's really just a renovation," Gardner said. "There will be some roof replacement, there will be interior painting, flooring, lighting, some low voltage and fire alarm work, some replacement of exterior windows."

Gardner said there will also be some door and plumbing replacement at Hickory Hills.

As the budgets for the two projects reflect, renovations at MCAA are not planned to be as extensive as those for Hickory Hills.

"We did do a lot of roof replacement and HVAC equipment a few years ago" at MCAA, Gardner said, noting there will also be door and window replacement at the school, in addition to regrading and asphalt repaving work. 

The changes to Hickory Hills and MCAA will add to building updates already underway in the district. The board recently approved roughly $13 million for the second and third phases of renovations at West Side Elementary School.

Phase two entails construction of a new cafeteria for West Side, while phase three involves added parking, lanes, and interior work on new windows, plumbing and electrical infrastructure for the school, Gardner told the MDJ in July. 

Other spending items the board will consider at its next meeting include:

• Up to $32,000 for a contracted staff member to support the administration at Marietta High School;
• Up to $76,000 for a special education nurse for elementary schools;
• A $20,910 contract with the Strand Theatre in downtown Marietta to partner with West Side Elementary for its drama program;
• $87,516 to renew the district's contract with Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), a testing agency the district uses to measure students' academic progress.

During the work session, the board also approved the appointment of Darron Franklin, a former principal of Turner Middle School in Lithia Springs, as the district's new director of performance evaluation and investigations.