The Mead School District has selected Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, as general contractor for the planned $29 million Northwood Middle School.

Ned Wendle, Mead’s director of facilities and planning, says site work on the project is scheduled to begin this spring, and construction of the new school is expected to be completed by May 2018. ALSC Architects PS, of Spokane, is drafting final design plans, Wendle says.

The new school will be built just south of the current 56-year-old middle school building at 13120 N. Pittsburg, in the school district north of Spokane. A roughly 16,000-square-foot portion of the current school building will be upgraded and will become part of the new school. The main gym, auxiliary gym, and choir and band rooms will remain with the new construction. The new building is expected to include about 118,000 square feet of space, Wendle says.

“The discussion is that nothing gets demolished at this point,” Wendle says. Classroom space in the current Northwood building could host temporarily students from Midway and Shiloh Hills elementary schools, as those schools also will undergo modernization projects. Both structures are 34 years old.

In the past decade, the Mead School District has grown by 700 students. Mead has 16 schools tallying nearly 10,000 students, Wendle says.

As of yet, no decision has been made about what to do with the current Northwood building once the new one is complete and modernizations at the elementary schools are finished. Wendle says state law prevents the district from using what will be the former Northwood Middle School for educational purposes for students.

District officials have discussed using the structure for some administrative offices, but a final decision has yet to be reached.