Hernando County School District officials on Tuesday detailed three school construction projects now in or approaching construction and provided cost and timing estimates for each.

The most advanced project is a 30‑classroom flex building serving Winding Waters K‑8 and Weeki Wachee High. District presenter Brian Reagan said the precast concrete structure will provide 13 ground‑floor classrooms for the K‑8 middle grades and 17 second‑story classrooms for the high school. Reagan said the guaranteed maximum price (GMP), including furniture and turnkey outfitting, is roughly $21.0 million and that the building is slated for substantial completion by May 31, 2026.

The district is also building a two‑story classroom and a hardened cafeteria at Eastside Elementary. Reagan said the classroom portion totals about 26,800 square feet and the cafeteria about 13,500 square feet; the GMP for the Eastside classroom and cafeteria building is about $27.0 million. He told the interlocal meeting that roughly $1.4 million of that cost is associated with hurricane‑shelter hardening. The cafeteria building was expected to be useable June 1, 2026, and the classroom building July 1, 2026.

Reagan said the Eastside project will add about 440 student stations in the new classroom building and that the cafeteria will be built to meet shelter requirements for that part of the county. The district will remodel two older Eastside buildings — converting the vacated cafeteria into office space and converting existing offices into primary classrooms and an ESE (Exceptional Student Education) suite — to add about 72 additional student stations. That remodel is currently being bid; Reagan said a GMP the district had received was roughly $5.6 million and the planned completion for renovation is sometime in 2027.

District officials described building types and site constraints. Reagan said the Winding Waters building was constructed with off‑site precast panels to avoid prolonged on‑site work that would have disrupted a bus loop; the building was placed on existing paved courts to reduce site work. He described the Eastside classroom/cafeteria as a tilt‑up concrete building that will require more site work and drainage improvements than the Winding Waters project.

Why it matters: The additions are intended to provide short‑term capacity relief and to provide an additional hurricane shelter on the east side of the county. School leaders gave specific cost and completion targets, details that will be used when budgeting and when coordinating with county road and safety projects.

Reagan and Superintendent Ray Pinder answered questions about cost drivers, including the relative premium for precast versus conventional construction, and explained that site work and drainage accounted for much of Eastside’s higher per‑square‑foot cost. Pinder and Reagan said the district has paused a second phase of expansions pending enrollment trends.