Perry High the first of four Houston schools to get auditorium upgrades

Houston County is modernizing its high school auditoriums, and Perry High is the first in line.

Work is set to begin this summer on the $800,000 project to update the school’s performing arts theater.

The Board of Education approved a design contract with WM2A Architects in Macon and company President Trey Wood at its Tuesday meeting. Seat upgrades, center aisles and new sound boards and lights are among the planned updates, said Stephen Thublin, Houston County’s assistant superintendent for finance and business operations.

Auditoriums at Northside, Houston County and Warner Robins high schools will also be renovated during the next five years, although architects haven’t been selected yet for those schools. All four projects will be funded through education special purpose sales tax dollars.

“They really haven’t been renovated since they’ve been constructed,” Thublin said. “We’ve allocated funds to really try to bring all the high school auditoriums up to a more modern level and improve the sound and technology in them. They’re all unique (projects).”

The ESPLOST plans also call for four new competition gymnasiums. Veterans High has a “double-decker” gym that seats more than 2,000 people, but Houston County, Northside, Perry and Warner Robins high schools sometimes struggle to host large events such as state tournaments, Thublin said.

Construction on Northside High’s multipurpose building also will begin this summer, according to a previous Telegraph article. Veterans High will eventually get a multipurpose gym too, Thublin said.

The board also approved the purchase of nine new school buses and the retirement of six buses that were more than 20 years old, one bus totaled in a wreck and six maintenance vehicles.

This story was originally published February 14, 2017 at 4:36 PM with the headline "Perry High the first of four Houston schools to get auditorium upgrades."