The Davis and Floyd architectural firm unveiled preliminary drawings Tuesday for an estimated $5.18 mil-lion ninth grade addition to Blacksburg High School.

The Greenville architects were asked by school trustees in January to develop a design for the Blacksburg High addition based on

a feasibility study done by Southern Management, the district’s building program manager. The addition would tie into the existing Blacksburg High building and be built on the site of the present facul-ty parking lot beside the school cafeteria.

The preliminary plans would involve building a 2-story, 30,000 square-foot addition containing 12 regular classrooms, two physical science labs, two special education classrooms, two resource rooms and an addition to the current band room, said Wayne Reed, an architect with Davis and Floyd. A covered patio with a commons area would be created between the new addition and the band room so students would have another place to gather WHAT IT WILL COST

Southern Management Principal Architect Tom Baldwin said con-struction costs have increased 25 percent since the district built a 22classroom addition at Blacksburg Middle School several years ago.

Here is a preliminary estimate for building a ninth grade school in Blacksburg:

. Building cost: $3,605,640

. Site and Demolition costs: $324,507

. Covered Patio and Commons Area: $157,500

. Paved parking: $118,400

. Construction cost: $4,206,047

. Fees, Testing, Surveys, Misc.: $504,725

. 10 percent budget contin-gency: $471,077

. Total project cost: $5,181,849 at school.

The addition would allow Blacksburg High School to accommodate another 360 stu-dents beyond the present 600 students expected to enroll for the 2005-2006 school year. The district would add 128 paved parking spaces for students and relocate the faculty park-ing lot to an area in front of the gymnasium.

“With the addition, the Blacksburg High property will be developed to its limit. This is the last thing the district will be able to build at this loca-tion,” Reed said. “There is no way under the present plan we can make the school any larger unless we put a third floor on the addition.”

Blacksburg High School cur-rently projects 215 ninth grade students will enroll for the 2005-2006 school year, princi-pal Jim Touchberry said.

“We expect those numbers to continue to grow over the next few years,” said BHS Principal Jim Touchberry, whose school will jump from Class A to Class AA in 2006. “We added four classrooms to the original plan for the addition to account for future growth. We believe this will be more than enough.”

School trustees took no action on the proposed Blacks-burg High plans presented by Reed.