ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Construction crews at Asheville Middle School are racing to renovate the school track before winter. The finished track will mark the completion of a decade-long makeover of the historic school.
2016 to 2026: Upgrading Asheville Middle
Originally opened in 1965, Asheville Middle received a massive overhaul in 2016, when the old building was replaced with a state-of-the-art, 160,000-square-foot campus in an over $40 million renovation.
However, one part of the school was left out of that project.
“When our new school building was constructed ten years ago, the original track was the only part of our campus that stayed in its original location and remained untouched,” Asheville Middle wrote in a Facebook post earlier this week. “As we celebrate a decade in our building, we are deeply grateful that this final piece of our original construction vision is coming to life for our students and community.”
Construction is currently underway on the new track, which district officials estimate will be finished before this winter.
“It’s set to conclude before we really get into winter because you need to be able to pour and cure the concrete. 
You need to apply the rubberized coating in certain weather. So, I certainly don’t see any situation where it drags on into December and January, because it would really be too cold for those things,” explained Jeremy Gibbs, Chief Operations Officer for Asheville City Schools.
The result will be a track that is “up to the standard.”
“The work has already commenced. 
If you have been out there and looked, the old track is milled up. It’s not just a resurfacing. It is all the way down, back to the dirt, and then really building it up properly,” Gibbs said. “All the layers, concrete, bringing it back up and then covering it with an industry-standard rubberized surface that’s good for runners.”
Addressing potential disruptions
Gibbs does not anticipate any major conflicts between the track and school operations.
“I think most of the project is pretty contained out there on the track. I think the contractor, when we met with them in the preparation meeting, was really focused and understanding the way schools operate. Understanding carpool line times and things of that nature. I think they’re gonna really try to minimize that disruption,” Gibbs said.
Though the track will be under construction, athletes will still be able to use the field this autumn.
“The field is totally accessible, as far as it’s a good turf field in really nice condition, and so they’ll still be able to have practices and games,” Gibbs said. “But it’ll be different, of course. 
There’ll be some safety directions to follow. It will be kind of changing. People will need to pay attention to the signs.”
Asheville Middle said that the track has been used previously for overflow parking during large campus events. Because cars will not be able to drive on the new track, there will be some changes to parking protocol at the school.
“We are considering all options, such as spreading the event over a longer time frame, assigning times for visits, encouraging carpooling and using one lane of the car/bus loops for parking,” Asheville Middle wrote on Facebook. “With that said, we hope to have some of those logistics finalized for us in the next week so we can proactively communicate with families about our Meet the Teacher scheduled for Thursday, August 20th.”
Additional improvements
There will be one more addition to the Asheville Middle campus.
“At the conclusion of the track, also included in the project, there will be a restroom constructed over by the softball field, closer to [South] French Broad Avenue,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs and his team are juggling several projects across the Asheville City Schools district. The operations officer said it is demanding work, but worth it in the end.
“I mean, they’re good things, good headaches to have, because when you come out the other side of them, you’re gonna have a vastly improved facility,” Gibbs said. “Especially in the case of Asheville Middle, that’s hugely used by the community. It’s a community asset and people view it that way. 
I think it will really be bringing that up to standard, and helping everybody be able to access that space and really just get even more mileage out of it.”