Students will be walking into the future when the doors of the new Tarpon Springs Elementary School open this fall, builders say.
And that future is green.
The school — along with Tyrone Elementary in St. Petersburg, which is also under construction — will become Pinellas County's first environmentally-friendly schools, pending certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
The council provides Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, designations for buildings that meet a lengthy set of environmentally-responsible standards.
At Tarpon Springs, that means low-flow plumbing fixtures, nontoxic building materials, sensors that automatically turn off lights to conserve energy, high-efficiency heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems and Florida native landscaping irrigated with reclaimed water, said project manager Joe Primiani, of Creative Contractors.
The facility will have 40 classrooms with Smartboards, which replace traditional chalkboards and allow teachers to communicate through laptop computers.
The school will also have music and art labs, a media center, amphitheater, playground, nature trail and an outdoor learning center with wireless Internet.
$22M-24M
Construction cost
110,000
square feet. Total size of facility
3,500
cubic yards of concrete used in construction.
250
tons of steel used in
construction.
1,600
gallons of paint used.
17
months of construction, including demolition.
84
percent of construction waste was recycled.
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