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Ready-made classrooms arrive at school

By Times Staff
Published May 18, 2006

[Times photo: Stephen J. Coddington]

Above, workers secure a prefabricated concrete modular classroom to a crane Wednesday to lift the section into place at Lecanto High School. Units will be stacked one atop another to form a two-story wing that can withstand a Category 5 hurricane, said manufacturer Royal Concrete Concepts Inc.

LECANTO - On Wednesday, crews installed the first concrete units of a two-story center that will house ninth-graders at Lecanto High School next year.

School administrators watched in awe as a giant crane slowly lifted and installed the concrete classrooms on cement footings behind the school.

Concrete Royal Concepts of West Palm Beach built the classrooms and began delivering them to the school Tuesday night.

Unlike traditional portable classrooms, these units are made of concrete and reinforced with steel. They are built to withstand hurricane-strength winds.

The two-story project, which includes 16 classrooms, teacher and work spaces, bathrooms and even an elevator, will be completed in July.

Royal Concepts also will build and install six concrete classrooms at the CREST school, which is also in the Lecanto school complex off County Road 491.

The total project cost will be $2.7-million.

School superintendent Sandra "Sam" Himmel said adding a traditional brick-and-mortar wing to the school could have taken more than a year. The concrete classrooms were built in less than two months.

"It's amazing what they can do," Himmel said as she watched a crane stack a concrete classroom on a second-floor story.

[Last modified May 18, 2006, 01:40:19]