Lexington County School District 1 officially broke ground on 2 new school construction projects last week.

The new Pelion Middle School project is located at 325 Main Street, directly off Highway 178. It’s on a 54.61-acre site across from Pelion High School.

The new middle school will open January 2021 during the 2021–22 school year.

It will be about 203,000 square feet and is designed for 1,200 students with the capacity to serve 1,500, according to the district.

H.G. Reynolds Company, Inc. located in Aiken will handle construction. H.G. Reynolds is currently building Beechwood Middle, the prototype used for PMS.

Jumper, Carter, Sease Architects is designing the new school. They also designed Beechwood Middle, Pleasant Hill Middle, River Bluff High, Gilbert High, White Knoll High, Pelion High and numerous other projects for Lexington District 1.

The new elementary school construction project in Gilbert is located at 4147 Augusta Highway. It’s a 22.57-acre site between Rice Drive and Southland Road.

The new elementary school will open in August of 2020 for the 2020–21 school year. At that time, the Gilbert attendance area will have 2 kindergarten through 5th grade schools.

The finished school will be about 128,000 square feet and is designed for 1,000 students with the capacity to serve 1,200 students.

M.B. Kahn Construction Co., Inc., located in Columbia is handling the construction.

Jumper, Carter, Sease Architects, located in West Columbia, is designing the project. The district will use existing elementary school design plans used to build Deerfield Elementary, Meadow Glen Elementary and Rocky Creek Elementary.

The district says using the same prototypes can save the district time and money on fees and construction costs.