Hot Springs School District Superintendent Stephanie Nehus says construction on the new $37.8 million Hot Springs World Class High School on Emory Street is still on schedule, and projected to open in the fall of 2025.

The 140,000-square-foot, three-story building on the west end of campus will house approximately 750-800 students in grades 10-12, and mark the completion of a “super campus” project that began with the groundbreaking for a new Hot Springs Junior Academy in 2018.

Nehus said the new building is expected to be fully completed by May 2025. Then, the district will move out of the old high school and into the new one over the summer.

Phases 2 and 3, which have been combined, will then begin in summer 2025. This includes the demolition of the old 1968 high school, building a new general-purpose gymnasium/safe room, and remodeling the science building to serve as an extension of HSJA.

Finally, new soccer fields and tennis courts will be constructed on the site of the old high school between the buildings.

She said they hope to have everything done by the end of summer 2026, noting the additional components should take about a year.

Currently, the foundational components of the new building are in place and work is being done on the classroom wing portion.

From left, French Architects Principal Architect David French, Project Coordinator Barry Breeding, and Interior Designer Dawn Shafer talk about the progress made on the new Hot Springs World Class High School on Thursday while on site.

“You can visibly see the whole footprint of the building,” she said Thursday. “Obviously, electrical, plumbing, all of those components are part of that foundational underlying stage. And the instructional wing is what has the steel up. You see the three floors, very similar to our Hot Springs Junior Academy instructional classroom wing.

And that’s what you see fully taking shape.”

French Architects, the architectural firm for the project, also served as the architects for HSJA on the east of campus, which was completed in spring 2020.

Principal Architect David French said the two buildings will share much of the same materials and mirror one each on the exterior.

“We did mimic the junior academy design, as far as classroom wing and making sure that all of the new classrooms have natural lighting and opening up the corridor so that teachers have line of sight,” French Architects Interior Designer Dawn Shafer said.

“We have a big learning stair that the students will be able to use and hang out in as well as multipurpose classrooms. And so we just tried to take what we did at the junior academy and just upgrade and make it a nice space for the teachers and the students,” she said.

French noted that the new high school was much needed.

“I think the overall vision is they looked at this high school, which my brother graduated from the first class in this high school, and they looked at the mechanical systems, they looked at the room sizes, they looked at everything they could about this building, and there were a lot of red flags that came up so far as what it was costing and everything like that,” he said.

“So with that, they felt like that they should build a new school and just moved forward from that. … Be a state-of-the-art school with every kind of advanced technology you could think of,” he said.

Nehus noted the standards and building requirements have changed a lot since the late 1960s and the new high school will reflect the changes.

“The classrooms will be larger because that will meet the current building code standards for a classroom space. We also just have some new innovative components,” she said.

“This building doesn’t have a theater in it or an auditorium space because we have the shared space at the junior academy, and so instead it will have collaboration stairs. That’s where class meetings will be held, and that’s an open space. It’s also a space where kids could sit and eat lunch and just meet and greet each other throughout the day.”

French said that so far, the weather could not have been any better for the construction teams. Nehus agreed, noting her concern, however, over the winter.

“This is always the nerve-wracking time as we enter the winter season,” she said. “We’ve been pretty much on schedule up to this point. I know at one point, it was like, ‘We might be about a week behind.’ But praying for good weather throughout the winter where the construction teams can get the building enclosed and in the dry to allow them to continue working no matter what the weather is outside. So that’s the next big hurdle to get through, is the winter months, and make sure we can just stay on target with our timing.”

The district plans to do asbestos abatement on the current high school during the upcoming breaks, including Christmas break, spring break, and over the summer.