Glynn Academy now has 162 parking spots following the completion of a months-long project that included the demolition of the former school administration office on Egmont Street.
Glynn County Schools wrapped up work on the new parking area just before the start of the new school year.
A little drainage work and landscaping are basically all that’s left to do, said Mike Blackerby, executive director of operations for Glynn County Schools.
Glynn Academy previously had just 77 parking spots on campus. Adding the new spaces increases student safety and campus security, Blackerby said.
“It brings most of the parking for the students back onto school property,” he said. “They were parking on the sides of the road. They were using some of the local churches there for parking. This pretty much gives us enough space either adjacent to the school building or on our property for students and staff to park.”
Glynn Academy’s campus is fenced and gated off. The new lot is adjacent to the high school’s gated entrance.
“It keeps the kids from having to walk a long distance from neighboring areas to park,” Blackerby said. “They’re right there at the gate of the school.”
The creation of a new parking area for Glynn Academy was made possible when the school system completed construction on the new Altama Elementary School and renovations at Golden Isles Elementary, which was temporarily located in the old Altama building.
The school board and district administration moved their offices into the former Altama Elementary in 2022. The district was then able to tear down its old office to provide needed parking to Glynn Academy.
“We waited until the students were out of school, to the day after the last day of school to start the demolition process,” Blackerby said. “We had to take down the old building and at the same time once we did that we had to demolish the other parts of the parking lot because we wanted to make it a more efficient use of the space.
“Just simply putting a new parking lot where the building was would not have been the most efficient use, so we wanted to repave it all and restripe it all to get the most parking the spaces.”
The Glynn County Board of Education voted in May to pay R.H. Tyson Construction $977,173 to work on the Egmont Street parking lot. The project is among the last on the ESPLOST III funding list.
The newly opened parking area benefits not only students and staff at Glynn Academy, but also the school’s neighbors in downtown Brunswick, Blackerby said.
“Overall it helps our neighbors in that area from a traffic standpoint and a parking standpoint, particularly the First Baptist Church and those who are adjacent to it,” he said. “A lot of times we were using their parking spaces during the day.”