By LINDA CHION KENNEY
Billed as being, both in size and cost, two times greater than any other public school built in Hillsborough County, the high school taking shape in Wimauma seated hundreds of builders at its topping out last week.
In a classroom wing with a section built to house the district’s first dedicated EA Sports instruction endeavor, school officials, contractors and skilled tradespeople heralded the upcoming school and its meaning to fast-growing Wimauma.
Likewise, they applauded that for 250 days there has not been one workplace injury at the massive constructive site.
Those in the video gaming and trades professions know, respectively, how significant these two points are. EA Sports is a division of Electric Arts that develops and publishes sports video games, and school officials say it will be a main draw for student interest at the school set to open for the 2025-26 school year.
Traditionally, topping out (also known as topping off) is a ceremony that occurs when the final, or highest, structural beam is raised into place.
School board members, from left, Pattie Rendon; Karen Perez, chair; and Lynn Gray, with High School UUU topping out builder celebrants behind them
Linda Chion Kenney Photos
Allen Greene II, left, with his namesake father, right, co-founders of Envision; Ryan Toth, left, of The Beck Group; and Chris Farkas, deputy superintendent of operations
“It’s really like Thanksgiving dinner,” said Ryan Toth of The Beck Company, who as regional director is responsible for Beck’s design and construction work in Florida. He said he was thankful for Beck’s partnership with the school system for the past 25 years, helping to construct buildings “that are a fabric of the community.” Toth noted also Beck’s work as contract manager in partnership with Envision, a minority-owned business founded by Allen Greene II and his namesake father.
“We’re thankful, too, for you, the folks with boots in the mud, who actually are out here getting the job done in a safe, high-quality way,” Toth said, continuing his topping out speech. “Frankly, it makes me question all the things that you hear about the lack of transport and the lack of people in the trades. It’s really amazing to see what you guys have done.”
As fate would have it, the May 1 topping out was held one day before the celebration of life service for Doris Ross Reddick, the first African-American woman school board member and chair and namesake of the nearby elementary school. Reddick died April 21 at age 97. She served on the board from 1992 to 2004.
Under Reddick’s watchful eye, annual minority business allocations rose “from a meager $1,084 to millions,” according to a 2021 proclamation issued for her 94th birthday.
Beck supervisors Steve Hurst, left, and Chris Hart, with a view of High School UUU behind them
Jim Hamilton, as deputy superintendent, served under superintendent Earl Lennard, who held his position from 1993 through 2005. During Lennard’s term, with Hamilton having facilities oversight, the district constructed, renovated or built additions to nearly 100 schools.
At the time, “the school district had a commitment to fostering opportunities for minority owned businesses, but the institutional challenges faced by the small startup businesses that were often minority owned remained formidable,” Hamilton said. “One of Mrs. Reddick’s missions in life was to see that those challenges were removed and that all businesses had an equal shot at the economic activity stimulated by the school district.”
This quote was read to Greene II, a Sickles High School graduate, who co-founded Envision with his father, a Tampa Bay Tech graduate. Greene said Envision has worked on Hillsborough County school projects for six years, including commercial flooring work for Sumner High School in the Balm/Riverview area, which when it opened in 2020 was the district’s largest school. It now needs relief, even after the 2022 opening of an additional classroom wing.
About Reddick ,the younger Greene said, “We thank those trailblazers who blazed a trail for people like us.” The Wimauma school, he added “is by far the largest and most impactful project we’ve done for the county.”
More important, “we want to learn, grow and develop in a real and meaningful way,” Greene added. “This is bigger than just checking a box as a transactional approach to the prime contractor partnering with a minority firm. Its bigger than that. We want to be a great company first, and that’s what we’re here to do, to learn and grow from one of the best.”
A view of a three-story High School UUU wing under construction in Wimauma.
Among the speakers at the topping out were school board chair and members Karen Perez, Patti Rendon and Lynn Gray, who said High School UUU “will change the Wimauma business community in a very positive way.” Noting county plans to build a four-lane road leading into the trio of upcoming schools, Gray added that with growth and job, education and networking opportunities on the rise, “Wimauma will never be the same again.”
Known as High School UUU until it is officially named, the $176 million, multi-building, 359,000-square-foot campus is slated to open just south of Sun City Boulevard, at 1708 West Lake Drive. Situated on an 87-acre greenfield site, plans call for both a middle and elementary school, set to open in 2027 and 2028, respectively. All three schools will be served by a central energy plant, now under construction.
But it was High School UUU that drew attention May 1, where Chris Farkas, deputy superintendent of operations, made it a point to recognize that, “this is two times larger, in size and cost, than anything we’ve ever built.”
