Gulf Shores, Ala. – (OBA) – A big part of a plan by Gulf Shores to borrow almost $200 million for capital improvements includes expanding existing schools and building two new schools.

All of the improvements in the 10-year plan, City Administrator Steve Griffin said, is due to the continued growth in the tourism industry and the city’s exploding population.

“With that comes the strain on our existing transportation network, public safety resources and just overall quality of life for our residents,” Griffin said. “Our attempt in adopting the 10-year capital improvement program is to better foster for all of that and make for a better place to visit and a better place to live we believe to keep up with what is growing.”

While most of the projects are for transportation infrastructure – a third lane on southbound State Route 59, a pedestrian bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway at Tacky Jacks, a reroute of Canal Road south of the Meyer Park neighborhood, a new justice center and police department, among others – big plans are also afoot for the schools.

Mayor Robert Craft said all the plans are preliminary and the loans, one for $150 million and another for $47 million, are needed to start the planning process for the projects.

“We don’t have a lot of detail other than what you are seeing,” Craft said. “We don’t have budgets attached to any of these things yet because we haven’t gone through the engineering and paid for the engineering and architecture to design them all completely. We’ve got conceptual plans we’ve got some ballpark figures on it but we don’t have total costs yet because we’ve haven’t gotten the money necessary to do the design process.”

The council voted at its March 14 meeting to proceed with both loans to take advantage of the current interest rate, one Craft says will save the city money over the life of both loans if the rates go higher.

“A 1 percent change in interest over those 20 years would cost us $24.4 million if we didn’t get it at the current 2.4 and 2.34 interest rates,” Craft said. “It was just incumbent on us to look at the world, look at our markets. Our opportunity to get this ends tomorrow (March 15).”

With the schools, there are definite ideas on what city and school leaders think is needed but again costs are yet to be determine.

At the current elementary school, a new STEAM wing is nearing completion and an eight-room wing next to it is being planned. Also, school officials expect even more growth in student population.

“Our ten-year plan for facilities examined several areas including existing infrastructure, capacity, and instructional adequacy,” Superintendent Dr. Matt Akin said. “We have already begun a $10 million project to upgrade our infrastructure including HVAC systems and roofs. Our enrollment has increased substantially during the last three years, so we know that we need more classrooms.”

The STEAM wing adds six classrooms and two labs. The school board is also planning on a new eight-classroom wing adjacent to the STEAM wing.

“We expect to go to bid by late spring/early summer,” Akin said. “Expected completion by the start of the 2023 school year.”

The city also hopes to build a second elementary school on Coastal Gateway Boulevard on two parcels totaling 120 acres on the south side of the road. The entire acreage could also be used to add recreation amenities, a new fire station and a connector road south to connect with Oak Road East.

“We anticipate a new elementary school being built beyond 10 years,” Akin said. “The start date will be dependent on student population growth.”

The crown jewel will be the high school campus where preliminary plans hope to include an aspect of post-secondary offerings there as well.

“The new high school that they unveiled last week is at the corner of Coastal Gateway Boulevard and Foley Beach Express,” Griffin said. “This is a new collaborative learning style facility. The school board adopted this as part of their 10-year plan and that’s going to be looked at as part of its overall funding plan.”

Akin said he hopes the design on the new high school begins this spring and he would like to see the new campus open in the fall of 2025. At that time the elementary school will take over the middle school space and the middle school will be moved to the current high school location.

At the work session on March 7 when the loans were first discussed, city documents indicated the loans’ debt service would be paid by the phased in lodging tax and sales tax revenue generated by the growing population. Griffin said the 3 percent hike in lodging taxes would generate between $8.2 million and $10.2 million annually and the city expects an increase in sales tax collections of $4.9 million a year.

That’s a combination of $13.1 million to $15.1 million and projected payment on the loans is $12.68 million.