Pre-construction processes beginning at MHS West

Kyla Barnett, Features Editor

The new school year has come with plenty of changes, one of which is the construction that will be happening at Manhattan High.

Last fall’s bond referendum voted to expand MHS, adding new parking lots, fields, classrooms and common areas, as well as making space for the freshman who will join West Campus. To prepare for this construction, Olson engineering firm was hired to work on some of the pre-construction processes. 

The workers started this week by doing a core sample of the earth outside the east side of D and E-Hall and also on the west side of the building.The drilling had little effect on the students and staff, other than parking. The work began on Wednesday at the west side of the building before moving on to the Northeast lot on Thursday and Friday. The drilling kept about ten parking spaces in the Northeast lot occupied but had no effect otherwise. 

The core sampling involved using a drilling rig with a hollow bit to remove an area of soil about 5 inches in diameter. Olson engineering is going to use this to find the composition of the soil to aid in the remodeling of the school.

“They can look and see, is it all sand, is it clay is it limestone, so they can see the composition of soil, so they can begin to plan what equipment the need to bring out,” Michael Dorst, building principal said. “If it’s… not going to be a stable soil below, then they need to remove the unstable soil, then they need to bring in a fill in a stable soil.”

While the soil testing is now continuing in a lab, the actual expansion construction is not planned to start until next school year when planning and design is finished.