DEMOPOLIS, AL — Trustees for the Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences (ASHS) Foundation have chosen Birmingham-based Brasfield & Gorrie as general contractor and construction manager to build the specialized 10-acre campus that will teach, train, and house high school students from throughout the state. The Demopolis campus of ASHS is slated to open in the fall of 2027.
“Brasfield & Gorrie has an impeccable reputation for delivering the highest quality work on time — no matter the specifications or unexpected complications,” ASHS Foundation Board President Kirk Stephens said. “They are up to the demands of this project and the hard timelines that must be met.”
The foundation board approved a $62 million agreement with Brasfield & Gorrie for the first phase of the campus, which will include an academic building, residential hall, dining facilities, 400-seat auditorium, and a recreational building. The campus will be adjacent to the school’s health care partner, Whitfield Regional Hospital, on land donated and prepared for construction by the city of Demopolis, Alabama.
As general contractor for the West Alabama Highway (WAH) Project, Brasfield & Gorrie recently opened a Demopolis field office to support WAH construction.
“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,” Brasfield & Gorrie Vice President and Division Manager Bill Steed said. “Between ASHS and the West Alabama Highway project, Brasfield & Gorrie is grateful to use our varied experiences to help build this part of our home state.”
| Your local Bomag Americas dealer |
|---|
| Linder Industrial Machinery |
The school will soft-open in fall of 2026 on its own mini-campus on the grounds of the University of West Alabama, with a freshman class of up to 100 students, while construction of the Demopolis campus takes place. Caldwell Associates are architects on the project.
ASHS will be the second of the state’s four residential specialty high schools that Brasfield & Gorrie has built. Its work on the Alabama School of Cyber Technology & Engineering, which opened in the 2022-23 school year, received professional honors and public praise.
That history is important to Dr. James “Jimmy” Martin, ASHS’ first President and a longtime Alabama educator. “The list of Brasfield & Gorrie’s educational projects is impressive, from primary schools to advanced university research centers,” he said, “and their reputation for meeting expectations and deadlines is well known.”
Major initial funding for ASHS is coming from a $26.4 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has included the school in its 10-campus network of high schools partnered with medical facilities across the U.S., to help alleviate the shortage of trained health care professionals while providing career opportunities for underserved youth. ASHS is the only one of the 10 that is a “ground-up” project and one of only two aimed at boosting rural medicine, with the remainder of the schools going into existing facilities in more urban settings.
