Two years and nearly 24 million dollars later, the Davenport School District is celebrating the completion of a major addition to Central High School. A ribbon cutting Wednesday afternoon marked the completion of a new auditorium and new swimming pool.
Principal Scott McKissick says the auditorium seats 900, with state of the art technology for lighting and sound.
"It's an opportunity for our kids to really get a feel for what a professional stage and the management of a facility like this will actually be. And some of those kids may decide to go on and take advantage of the education they had here as it relates to stage management and do the same thing at the college level."
Just the new lights cost 400,000 dollars, and many hours of training will be necessary for the staff and students who'll use it.
McKissick says in the new "natatorium" there's a warm up area so swimmers are better prepared to race. And in a recent meet, several school records were broken.
"We're hopeful this will be very fast water and that other schools will want to participate here as well, in hopes of getting the times necessary for them to qualify for state."
There's also seating for 300 on an upper level overlooking the pool.
Together the additions add up to more than 62,000 square feet.
