Faculty, students and parents prayed for donations Thursday night at a community meeting to make up the $2.5 million needed for a new, 45,000-square-foot school.

Board chairman Lynn Persell talked the crowd through floor plans of the planned facility near the soccer fields on U.S. 31 North. The project is expected to begin between Sept. 15 through Oct. 1.

“We’re looking at something very real,” he said, adding that administrators and board members continue to get questions about whether the project is fact or fiction. “We’re very serious — this is on the way.”

Funding

The school plans to take out a bridge loan spanning three to five years to pay for the $7.5 million project, Persell said, adding McKee and Associates of Montgomery will be responsible for construction because of their prior experience building schools.

Persell said board members approved the project due to school upgrade and expansion needs. The current ABS location has stayed the same since 1943, and the student population has outgrown it.

City officials look forward to a new school because of ABS’ history, he said.

“Mayor Marks told me a student asked him the other day if it was really going to happen and he told him it was,” Persell said. “It’s really going to happen.”

ABS Director of Development Gary Taylor said once the school sells the current property combined with an estate gift and committed donations, they will have just over $5 million.

“I hope to get parents contacted between now and the end of June,” he said. “When we call, please respond and please respond favorably. Unless you’re homeless, I believe everybody could give something — everybody should be able and want to do something for the school.”

Taylor said parents and grandparents know how the school has impacted their families by giving students a Christian education in a safe learning environment, and he too made a donation to the project.

“ABS is my school,” he said. “I made a commitment to this campaign as well because I wouldn’t ask you to do something I’m not willing to do myself,” he said.

School expansion

The new school would have 12 elementary classrooms on one end of the building and the high school would have 11 on the opposite end with two optional classrooms in the middle. The Rollings-Lovell building would seat 400 people and come with a larger stage.

Board members also agreed they wanted the campus at the same location as the ballfields, he said.

There will be room for two batting cages, a weight room and the gymnasium would hold about 600 people, Persell said.

“We’re very excited to have all this under one roof,” he said.

Since the new location is across the road from the new Athens High School, traffic congestion is a concern, but Persell said Athens High School will be responsible for having a traffic light installed in the area and administrators may adjust pickup and drop-off times.

“We will look at staggering times as far as entering and leaving to give one school a chance to dismiss before the other,” he said, further explaining the school will have enough space around it to keep cars from having to stay or park on the highway.

Based on the projected design, the school playground would be located behind the elementary wing, away from the highway.

“Hopefully we can keep them out of that creek down there — if not, maybe we’ll have some good fishermen and ladies out of that,” Persell said.

The high school wing would have parking south of the building, close to the soccer fields.

“I think we can accommodate most of the things we’re trying to do and give our children an opportunity,” he said.