Construction occurring in St. Clair Shores school districts

ST. CLAIR SHORES — During the summer and over the course of the past school year, St. Clair Shores school districts have been busy conducting construction work to improve facilities and student experience.

South Lake Schools
Elmwood and Avalon Elementary Schools in the South Lake Schools district will receive new playground equipment. South Lake Schools Superintendent Ted VonHiltmayer said playground equipment installation has been set back because of heavy rains.

Avalon is for children in kindergarten through second grade, and Elmwood is for children in grades 3-5.

“Part of that is getting age-appropriate playground equipment for each of the buildings,” VonHiltmayer said. “Not only replacing old equipment but it will be appropriate for the age of the students that are there.”

The district plans to keep any newer equipment that can still be used.

Construction on a new bus loop and parking lot at Elmwood is also in progress.

“In the front there was a parking lot and then there was a bus loop,” VonHiltmayer said. “Now, the two are combined and they’re putting in a new bus loop in the corner. That whole corner of the building that was unused is actually going to be where the new bus loop is.”

With the new bus loop, vehicles will enter off of California Street and exit on Malvern Street. VonHiltmayer said he hopes this will ease congestion.

Avalon will also receive an upgrade to its parking lot. A parent drop-off area will be added to the school building on the side of Pallister Street and around 40 to 50 more parking spots will be added. This is in the hope of easing congestion as well.

Roof work at South Lake High School, Avalon and Elmwood has also occurred.

A bond passed in August 2023 will cover the costs of the projects.

“So far, the district has spent $3,210,018.13 on summer bond projects,”  VonHiltmayer said in an email.

Construction should be done before the start of the school year on Sept. 3, VonHiltmayer said.

Lakeview Public Schools
Lakeview High School is getting a major upgrade to its football stadium. Upgrades include adding more seating for the home side, a new turf field, a new track, an added ticket booth near the Wheat Early Childhood Center entrance, a new storage shed and more.

Superintendent Karl Paulson said since the 1990s, the home bleachers have seated 850 people. With a high school population of around 1,450 students, the old bleachers didn’t cut it for sports games and schoolwide events.

“The idea of a new set of bleachers that was bigger and more substantial has been kind of floating out in the future for about 15 years,” Paulson said. “It wasn’t like a brand-new (idea), ‘Oh, let’s do this.’”

Paulson said they’ve been exploring options for the bleachers over the years. He said the smallest population the school had was around 950 kids.

“Once we got 1,300, 1,400 kids, you’re kind of like, you can’t do anything in the stadium with the school,” Paulson said. “We have an auditorium that’s 1,600 seats. It’s actually the biggest facility in Macomb County as far as auditoriums go. Anything we do with the kids, having all kids and staff, is in our auditorium, but that’s even full when you do staff and kids.”

He went on to say with the added seating they can host pep assemblies and other events outside with the new 1,700-seat bleachers. What used to be the home bleachers will now be the visitors’ bleachers. A press box will also be added to the home bleachers.

The first home game on the new field is scheduled to take place two to three weeks into September. Paulson said the homecoming game will most likely be the first game played on the new turf. At the time of the interview, construction was ahead of schedule.

High school practices start early August and the targeted date for completion was on Aug. 12.

“Even if we don’t have actual contests until September, the practice time on the facility obviously was necessary, too,” Paulson said.

The bid package for the football stadium cost $4,133,163 including demolition, new materials and other amenities. All of the new construction is covered under a bond passed by voters in 2019.

Lake Shore Schools
Lake Shore High School is getting a new addition to its cafeteria, front office and entrance.

Lake Shore Superintendent Joseph DiPonio said construction on the new additions has occurred for a little over a year. He said along with the expanded cafeteria and office spaces, they’ve also been working on heating and cooling functions and other things needed in the school.

“Kids will be pretty excited once they get back,” DiPonio said.

DiPonio said the new entrance at the front of the school has a new secured vestibule for children and parents to go through.

“They’ll get buzzed into the building (and) can’t get through here and then it kind of funnels all the traffic through the office,” DiPonio said.

During the school year while construction occurred, students were confined to a small area in the cafeteria to enjoy lunch. Certain parts of the high school were also closed off with temporary walls. DiPonio said things were more out of order than what the students were used to.

“We’ve got a great team, and they worked hard to make sure that they kept some normalcy for the kids,” DiPonio said. “We really kind of felt worse for our seniors because their senior year things were a little bit disrupted, and they won’t get the full benefits of this work.”

DiPonio went on to say that the other kids were excited knowing what’s to come next year.

“They’re going to walk into a brand-new building in a space that’s going to be pretty cool for kids,” DiPonio said.

A few benches that used to be situated in the front lobby of the high school will now be moved to the new administrative center. These benches have been a part of Lake Shore High School for a very long time. DiPonio said they plan to create an alumni space using the benches.

All the work in the high school is expected to be done by Aug. 13 and furniture is expected to be moved in by Aug. 16. The amount of area renovated in the school is 18,467 square feet, Codey Agemy, superintendent at Barton Malow, said. The original expected completion date was around December or January of 2025.

All construction work in the high school is covered by a bond passed by voters in 2022. The bond itself was for around $67,000,000. In an email DiPonio said a second bid pack was awarded at $5,237,274 and included renovations to the future North Lake High School and work at Lake Shore High School.