The new iAcademy at Athens Elementary building will be built between Houston and Madison streets, at the same site where the old AES once stood. The City Council voted to approve the acceptance of an $18 million bond for the project during Monday's meeting.

A project years in the making is finally taking another step forward in Athens.

The City Council unanimously approved a resolution during its Monday meeting to provide for the issuance of an $18,860,000 bond for the building of a new iAcademy at Athens Elementary.

Athens City Schools Superintendent Beth Patton said the new school will be located where the previous iAcademy had been, at the intersection of Madison Street and First and Second Avenue.

“That lot has been completely cleared,” she said. “The site prep is done, so we are ready to build.”

Patton said once the bond money is in hand the system will be ready to bid out the project, “hopefully by the end of June.”

There is still a gym at the former location that Patton said the school system will keep and plans to remodel.

As far as the current iAcademy location, which formerly housed Athens Middle School, Patton said ACS will keep the Clinton Street building for now as overflow given the anticipated growth Athens is facing.

“We may have to utilize it before we can get all the spaces we need,” she said. “We definitely don;t want to do anything to it for a few years.”

The project was originally estimated to cost closer to $16 million, with Council member Harold Wales asking during the meeting why the bond was for a higher amount.

Mayor Ronnie Marks said the increase in estimated cost was due to the continued rise in building costs, which he said has “gone through the roof.”

Chief School Financial Officer Serena Owsley told the Council that ACS paid for the site work and demotion at the location out of the general fund.

Owsley said the new iAcademy will be more expensive per square foot than the new Athens High School due to the rise in building costs.

“By the time you include everything it was about $16 million, but we added 20% on it to make sure we did not come up short,” she said, adding that increase was a recommendation by the architect attached to the project. “We didn’t increase our footprint, it was building material cost.”