By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The Alabaster City School System’s plan to move multiple school campuses this summer took another step toward completion during an early April meeting, as the city’s Board of Education voted to award a moving bid.

The BOE voted unanimously during its April 8 meeting to award an $85,598 bid to the New Latitude moving company to complete the school moves over the summer months.

“We had some very competitive bids for this. They came in much lower than we thought they would,” said Alabaster School Superintendent Dr. Wayne Vickers.

The company will move items around at several of the city’s schools while they are relatively empty for the summer.

ACS is planning to move Thompson Middle School and Thompson Sixth Grade Center into the old THS building and then move Thompson Intermediate School into the current TMS building. The current Thompson Intermediate School will be renovated to serve as central office space for the school system.

The school moves originally were planned to take place in August 2018 after renovations were completed last summer, but the scope of the renovations to the old THS building were much more extensive than originally estimated, ACS leaders said previously.

ACS awarded the moving bid a little more than a month after it voted to approve a $22,955 change order to install new marker and tack boards throughout the old THS building, and voted to approve a $28,470 change order to replace carpet in the school.

Both change orders were approved for the McKee and Associates company, which is handling the renovation project.

Vickers said the project to transform the old THS into the new Thompson Middle School building is progressing on schedule, and should be completed in time to welcome students at the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year.