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At a budget workshop meeting on Monday, Edinburg CISD gave an update to the collegiate high school with UTRGV which is now projecting completion by late May or early June, later than originally planned.
The UTRGV-Edinburg CISD Collegiate High School is a 66,000-square-foot facility. The university and the school district split the projected $30 million cost for the project.
The Monitor received a tour of the high school in early February where officials said it was about 75% done with estimated completion around April.
In the presentation during the meeting, a spreadsheet listed the high school as 86% complete with substantial completion by June 13.
ECISD Director of Facilities Roberto Gomez said the goal is to try to finish by the end of May. Gomez added the extended deadline for the contractors was due to permit processes and weather days.
“The permit process actually caught the district and the contractor by surprise,” he said. “Because UTRGV being that they own the property and … the building, they don’t usually obtain a building permit, but in this case, it was written into the agreement that they obtain the permit and so that added some days to the project.”
As far as construction goes, Gomez said the days requested were not to finish up items but just to deal with permits.
With the flooring of the high school being about 90% done and work on the ceiling and ceiling inspections continuing, Gomez said all that is needed are graphics around the campus and the furniture.
The spreadsheet listed the current revised project budget at around $29.5 million. About $22 million has been paid to date with UTRGV reimbursing the district around $6.5 million to date with about $4.8 million in reimbursement pending.
The new state-of-the-art high school will feature a total of 35 classrooms, 18 on the first floor and 17 on the second with each classroom having suspended ceilings.
The facility also features offices for university and district staff, three labs designated for physics classes, another three labs for biology and chemistry, one manufacturing lab, one computer lab and an auditorium that could seat about 170 people.
Taking the tour with Edinburg CISD Superintendent Mario Salinas in February, he said the high school will have a capacity of around 700 students and is expecting around 500 students to be enrolled in the high school’s first semester this fall.
The current UTRGV-ECISD Collegiate High School, which uses multiple portable classrooms as a campus, has about 325 students.
Fast forward to April, Salinas said the district is currently in a recruiting phase for the collegiate high school and that the latest information is that there were around 210 applicants.
“Right now, (UTRGV-ECISD Collegiate High School) is in portable buildings, so it’s a little harder to recruit kids,” he said. “The parents go out there and they think ‘uhhhh’ but with this facility, it’ll be easier to recruit parents in a building like this.”
