The Storey County School District hosted a groundbreaking ceremony celebrating the start of construction on a new K-8 school unifying Hugh Gallagher Elementary and Virginia City Middle School on Thursday.
The ceremony was held at the current Virginia City High School property.
This project will help address safety concerns and create a modern, secure, educational campus for Storey County students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
"This is a really big deal for the community, and it's been a long time in the works, nearly eight years," said Cary Richardson, president of Miles Construction. "And they're excited to add to the history of the Comstock."
"To be a part of the history of the Comstock is very special, a very unique opportunity," he added.
Richardson says the existing K-8 in Virginia City has several shortcomings that could not be fixed with the location it's currently at, so a new facility was the answer.
"The history of the Comstock continues to evolve," he said. "You can go all the way to the Fourth Ward Church, all the way to the 1800s, and in today's world the existing facility just doesn't work from a lot of different perspectives, but primarily from a secure campus perspective. There was no way to make it a secure campus, and in today's world that is a real problem and a real issue that needs to be addressed."
Richardson says creating a secure campus was one of the driving forces for those new schools.
They say the buildings that used to be the middle and elementary school will be repurposed for other things in the future.
The project will take about 18 months to two years to construct, with a projected end to construction in 2027.
"There are lots of groundbreakings, and I go to a lot of groundbreakings, but what was really special today was the community coming together for this," he said. "It really is a demonstration of how important it is to the community when you see this type of response."
Joe Girdner, the superintendent for the Storey County School District, says the new school will have two stories, with the middle school and elementary school on separate levels holding 400 kids, while 350 students will start out in the school once it's built.
"Our kids and our community will have a modernized school for many years, and a lot of school districts in our state or around the country are struggling with schools that are 100-plus years old and dilapidated and not ADA compliant," he said.
Girdner says the project will cost $30 million.
Additionally, some of the land around the schools will be donated so the elementary and middle school students will have a new turf and playground.
"Our elementary school kids here at Hugh Gallagher don't have grass; they play on a blacktop," he said. "That's why Virginia City kids are so tough, but it will be exciting for them to have an actual field to play on."
