What's in Bleckley County Schools $28 million renovation project?
The project includes a new primary school and major upgrades to Royals Stadium  BLECKLEY COUNTY, Ga.  School districts often get a lot of renovations done over the summer while students are away. Bleckley County is in the middle of a $28 million renovation that includes a new primary school and updates to their athletic facilities. Superintendent Steve Smith says its a long-overdue project. "Building a new primary school, which will serve our Pre-K through second grade. It will replace our current primary school and our central office will actually move over to our old primary school once they move into the new one," Smith said. He says there are a number of athletic renovations included in the project. "Renovating Royals Stadium. We're putting new bleachers in on the visitors' side, new press boxes on both sides, a locker room, a field house locker room on the other side of the stadium and a new concession stand, restroom entrance on the west side of the stadium," he said. There will be a new rubberized cheer and wrestling facility next to their high school track and the middle school is getting five new tennis courts. "We're excited about them getting new tennis courts, and then we're looking to actually light their baseball and softball field too. So, when it's all said and done we shouldn't have to have another project for 15 years or so," Smith said. Smith says this project was made possible by issuing bonds and using ESPLOST money, which is the local penny sales tax. "We're so thankful that recently in the past couple of years, the legislature passed a new law that basically collects sales tax on online sales. Well, since we don't have a retail base, especially when the pandemic hit, we found a lot of folks ordering online and we saw our ESPLOST collections go up. That's been a big plus for us," Smith said. Smith says Royals Stadium will be finished before the first football game this August. The primary school will open by the fall 2022 school year. Smith says they're financing these projects over four ESPLOST periods, which is 20 years.