MORGANTOWN – At a time when school districts across West Virginia are facing declining enrollments and the dreaded prospect of having to shutter buildings, Monongalia County is getting ready to put up a new facility.
And Mon’s Board of Education earlier this week inched closer to the beginning of the work for the $34 million Suncrest Middle – which the district wants open to students in the next two years.
The BOE will begin the search for a construction manager-at-risk soon.
CMARs help marshal the work in all phases, as they collaborate on costs with architects, contractors and everyone who is involved in large-scale projects with large-scale budgets.
The State School Building Authority awarded a $16.9 million outlay for the work in December 2024, which the district is matching.
“What a Christmas gift,” Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said then.
Greg Martin, a project architect at Williamson Shriver Architects, the Charleston-based firm that is designing the school, agreed with the superintendent.
“We’re excited,” he said. “It’s a great piece of land.”
Said land is a sloping tract – 17 acres and pad-ready – near West Virginia 705, between Mon Health Medical Center and Suncrest Towne Centre shopping plaza.
Enrollment is projected at 499 students in grades 6-8 with some breathing room factored in, the district said.
The design accounts for a 15% population growth in coming years, given that Morgantown is both a destination for its medical community, West Virginia University and various high-technology firms dotting the city and region.
Suncrest Middle’s three-story design will include ample classroom and lab space for its three grades.
A multi-level media center, regulation basketball court and athletic field are also in the blueprints, to go with that parking lot gridded out for more than 100 spaces.
The new school will also boast a 200-seat auditorium.
Most of Suncrest Middle’s students will arrive by school bus – and the BOE also during the meeting recognized a transportation employee who in turn was lauded by the state for his work.
District mechanic and driver Donavan Saporito took first-place honors during a recent bus inspector competition hosted by the West Virginia Association for Pupil Transportation.
Saporito and other contestants were tasked with locating as many defects planted into a bus as they could, while also correcting them in the timed outing.
