New middle school construction already underway

Heavy equipment and construction crews are on site where Bonneville School District 93’s newest school, Black Canyon Middle School, will be built.

Crews at Headwaters Construction have been able to put down the school site’s footing and foundation. Other crews are working to put in underground plumbing and electrical work as of Wednesday.

“They’ll just be working from north to south on that as the building progresses, but they are making great progress,” said John Pymm, the director of facilities at Bonneville School District 93.

Some bad weather in the early stages of construction caused a slight delay. The soil on the site had a lot of moisture in it, not giving crews the compaction or density they needed.

“In the end, we had to resort to some other ways to achieve our goal of making sure we got the right compaction and that the building is sitting on a solid base,” Pymm said.

But the rain did, somewhat, help move things along. The contractors pulled staff off other projects that could not be done because of the weather to lay down the foundation at the school’s construction site.

“It really moved us back onto our schedule,” Pymm said. “We’re feeling really good about where we are.”

The building will be 135,000 square feet and two stories when it is completed.

The additional school to the area will ease up the capacity on the other two middle schools in the district.

“Particularly right now in Rocky Mountain (Middle School), we’re way beyond what we would typically like to see in that building,” Pymm said.

The new middle school is designed for teacher and student teams in mind.

“The way that the building is constructed promotes collaboration, promotes the use of space and creates flexibility in the use of space,” Pymm said.

Black Canyon Middle School is next to Thunder Ridge High School in Bonneville County.

The school is expected to be open for the school year in fall of 2021, but crews believe it could be finished even sooner.