The foundation board overseeing financing for the new Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences, slated to open next year in Demopolis, recently approved plans for a $62 million campus where the public high school’s students will learn and live.
The Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences Foundation chose Birmingham-based Brasfield and Gorrie as general contractor and construction manager for the 10-acre campus.
The school will be the state’s fourth residential high school. It was first pitched by Gov. Kay Ivey in 2023 and approved by lawmakers in 2024.
The foundation, a 501(c)3, was created to secure outside funding for the project.
“Brasfield and Gorrie has an impeccable reputation for delivering the highest quality work on time — no matter the specifications or unexpected complications,” board President Kirk Stephens said in a written statement Wednesday. “They are up to the demands of this project and the hard timelines that must be met.”
Caldwell Associates is the architect.
The $62 million agreement is for the first phase of the campus, slated to open in the fall of 2027. It will include an academic building, residential hall, dining facilities, 400-seat auditorium and a recreational building. The city of Demopolis donated land for the campus adjacent to Whitfield Regional Hospital, where students will train.
“We are grateful that so much of our work directly affects communities, and it’s easy to see how ASHS will extend our state’s health care education,” said Brasfield and Gorrie Vice President and Division Manager Bill Steed.
The company is also the general contractor for the West Alabama Highway Project.
When it opens next year, the school will have a temporary campus at the University of West Alabama.
Eventually, the residential school will accept 9-12th grade students, and have a capacity for around 400 students. Students from across the state will be eligible to attend.
The Legislature and Ivey dedicated $15 million toward the project in 2024 and Bloomberg Philanthropies pledged $26.4 million. As of last year the foundation said the total cost of standing up the new high school would be about $64 million. It was looking for an additional $24 million.
Updated numbers were not available Wednesday, but Stephens said the board continues to raise money and recently named Scott Huffman president and CEO of the foundation. Huffman helped launch the state’s first residential high school nearly 30 years ago.
“We are excited at the commitments that have already been made, and we continue to meet the funding goals we have for the school,” Stephens said.
The tuition-free school will be designed to train and retain health care workers in the state, of which there remains a significant shortage, especially in rural areas.
Some legislative leaders initially questioned locating the school in rural west Alabama. The other residential high schools are in major cities. A feasibility study later supported the Demopolis decision.