The Cheney School District has awarded a $13.1 million contract to Spokane-based Leone & Keeble Inc. to construct a new elementary school, which is expected to help alleviate overcrowding at the district's four other elementary schools.

Jeff McClure, director of operations, maintenance, and safety for the district, says construction of the yet-to-be-named elementary school should begin this month. Construction is scheduled to be completed in time for the start of school in fall 2013.

The new 55,550-square-foot building is to be located at 6323 S. Holly and will have capacity for 500 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, McClure says.

"We already have the kids to fill the building, and it won't be long until another is needed," McClure says.

Currently, there are a total of 10 portable classroom structures at three of the district's four elementary schools, and each of those portables accommodates about 60 students, he says.

"Hopefully, we'll be done with (portables) for a long time, but growth on the West Plains threatens us to need to expand again," McClure says.

The new school will be the largest of the district's elementary schools, he says.

In late 2010, the school district purchased for $523,000 the 10-acre parcel on which the school is to be built. Site work started last fall to prepare the plot for construction of the school.

Work on the new elementary school is being funded through a $79 million bond measure that the district's voters passed in early 2010.

Proceeds from that bond also are funding construction of two new middle schools for the district. Work on those two facilities is on track to be finished before the start of school this fall, McClure says.

Spokane-based Lydig Construction is the general contractor under a $26.4 million contract for one of those new middle schools, located at 740 Betz. That school is being built to replace Cheney Middle School, at 2716 N. Sixth, which is slated to be demolished this summer.

The other new school scheduled to be completed later this year has been named Westwood Middle School and is located at 6120 S. Abbott. It's being constructed by Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, under a $26.4 million contract.

Spokane-based NAC|Architecture designed all three of the new school buildings.