Denita Dowell-Reavis
District leaders, staff, and students celebrated a ribbon-cutting at Sugar Loaf
Elementary’s media center October 22nd. The project has been in the making since
January 2023, when the district announced that the state had awarded $5.3 million in a
competitive needs-based grant. The money to redo the Sugar Loaf’s gymnasium and
media center comes from lottery funds.
When the district applied for the funding, upgrading the gym was part of a five-year
facility improvement plan for Alexander County Schools. Sugar Loaf Elementary opened
in 1958 and was most recently updated in 2002 with the addition of six new classrooms.
Pinnacle Architecture of Matthews created a plan to build a new gymnasium, create
new offices, and change the old gym into a media center at a price tag of $5.5 million at
Sugar Loaf. The school board picked JM Cope Construction to complete the project and
demolition began in fall of 2023. Now, 34 months after the announcement, the project is
finished.
Alexander County School Superintendent Dr. Bill Griffin thanked all the partners who
worked to get the media center completed. “What we have transformed it into now is just simply amazing. I would like to say that this is one of the finest media centers in the state of North Carolina. That comes at the hands of a lot of people, a lot of work, and a lot of vision,” beamed Griffin.
A stipulation of receiving the state needs-based funds or lottery money is that the
county is also willing to chip in a percentage of the cost. The Alexander County
Commission agreed to contribute $265,000, or five percent, of the matching money to
help with the Sugar Loaf upgrades. Griffin explained that the district also used $700,000
from capital money from half-cent sales tax to complete the project.
“We’re extremely grateful to everyone who planned to make this a success. I believe
that our students, staff, and community of Sugar Loaf will cherish this building and
facility for years to come,” said Griffin.
Griffin and principal Dawn Leary said the space can be used for STEM (Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Math) activities, community events, district-wide
professional development for teachers, or even regional and state meetings.
Commissioner Ronnie Reese, a former Sugar Loaf student, called the library the best
he’s seen.
“Because of education, helping the kids, the children, they need it. It’s something new.
In 1958, there wasn’t much going on back then, so we’ve come up to the future pretty
quick,” said Reese.
The entire renovation project did have some delays. The summer of 2024 had an
unusual amount of rain. Project manager Coleman Clark says once JM Cope started
digging in the area, workers realized they needed to find existing plumbing, water lines,
and electrical lines.
“It was really just trial and error. And just working through some of the conditions of a
building built in the 1950s,” said Clark.
Part of the project included keeping the wooden planks of the former Sugar Loaf gym as
the media center’s ceiling. The touch gives a bit of nostalgia to the otherwise updated
space.
The district also enlisted the help of the ACS maintenance and technology departments,
Custom Educational Furnishings of Taylorsville, and many others to complete the
library.
For the first phase of the project, the district celebrated the gym’s opening in October
2024 with dignitaries from the region and county taking part in a ceremony. Sugar Loaf
serves 216 students.