Construction is behind schedule on the new auditorium and pool at Davenport Central High School. They won’t be ready for students when they come back for the fall. “This is going to be the largest investment in Davenport schools, ever,” said Mike Maloney, director of operations at Davenport Schools. Since last July, crews have been working on Central High School’s new pool and auditorium. “The roof structure is complete, and we’re working hard to be water tight so we can begin the construction of the interior of the auditorium,” said Russel Construction’s senior project manager Brian Hedgren. The project’s price tag: $28 million dollars. That’s more than it cost to build West High School. Maloney says the improvements will be well worth it. “Central High will also be the home of creative arts academy in the future, so we’re going to have a real focus on fine arts at Central where there’s already a very strong and long tradition of fine arts,” Maloney said. The brand new, 900-seat auditorium was supposed to be done in time for the Fall productions. The deadline was pushed back to February, meaning it’ll be ready for the spring productions. The original deadline was pushed back because crews ran into some problems where the new construction was being connected to the old building. “There’s portions of the building that we’re tearing into that was constructed in 1929, and a lot of the plans that we were working off of, of the 1929 documents weren’t exactly like as shown. So when we tore into, there was a lot of unforseens,” Hedgren said. Crews have been working longer days and coming out on weekends to speed up the process. Their number one priority: The students. “What’s really neat is building something that’s going to impact so many students…It’s a real accomplishment for me to be part of, and leading a project such as this,” Hedgren said.
