Noble Texas Builders hosted the Los Fresnos Consolidated Independent School District for a topping-out ceremony Tuesday at the district’s newest campus, Resaca Middle School.
The ceremony recognized mounting the project’s final piece of structural steel. It followed a Scandinavian tradition in which construction workers engraved their names in wooden final beams, which were hoisted into place with trees attached to appease tree-dwelling spirits angered during the construction process.
The workers then joined in a meal to recognize the milestone. The same thing happened at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the new Resaca Middle School next to Rancho Verde Elementary School on Los Fresnos’ and Brownsville’s adjoining edges. Workers, school officials and others signed the final beam before it was hoisted into place, fitted with a tree and American flag. Then everyone involved in the project ate tacos, seated on a tented pavilion set up for the ceremony.
Noble Texas Builders Vice President Juan Delgado welcomed school officials and guests to the ceremony, also recognizing consultants, architects, engineers and subcontractors.
Actually, Los Fresnos already has a Resaca Middle School, which serves the southwestern part of the district.
“So what we are doing is relocating Resaca Middle School closer to the neighborhoods that are more densely populated and then we’re going to relocate Los Cuates Middle School into the building that Resaca currently occupies so that we can refurbish Los Cuates Middle School, our old high school, into a Career and Technical Education Center,” Superintendent Gonzalo Salazar said.
Salazar said the reconfigured middle schools and new CTE center will allow Los Fresnos CISD to continue to provide students with value-added diplomas that include industry certifications.
He credited Noble Texas Builders with championing the idea of high school students and their teachers completing internships and externships respectively on the building site.
“Our students need to leave high school with value-added diplomas, industry certifications, so the CTE center is where they can do that, and that campus happens to be located geographically between the two high schools, Los Fresnos United and Los Fresnos High School. We’ll eventually have two high schools. It’s been in the works for many years,” Salazar said.
The new campus is the centerpiece of a $63 million bond approved by district voters in May 2021.
“It’s the result of careful planning and putting ourselves in a financial position where we could pass a bond without raising taxes,” Salazar said. “I’ve never seen a campus be built as quickly as this has. …This campus will open in August 2023. I’m really excited about the progress. Right now we’re on course to open the campus without any rain delays,” he said.
Sandra Garcia, LFCISD board president, said the new campus is being built for the district’s students.
“We knew what we needed to do for the kids, provide a new facility so we could re-purpose the old facility. We had a common vision. We never wavered,” she said.
William Peterson, a 2009 Los Fresnos High School graduate and structural engineer with GRA Engineering, said the project, like all projects on the Texas Gulf Coast, has to meet exacting windstorm standards.
“Here on the Texas coast all buildings have to meet windstorm specifications. It’s very exciting to go back and do projects where I went to school,” he said.
The project sits on 23 acres and totals 150,000 gross square feet, including construction of a new middle school complex, gym, band hall, cafeteria, athletic building, and open pavilion.
