ED MATTHEWS / Staff

Despite the rain, crews with Kraft Construction Inc. continued work on Naples High School's new gymnasium on Tuesday, July 15, 2008.

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Bill Kramer, as well as a lot of other Naples High coaches, has been waiting for new athletic facilities for a long time. Now he’ll finally get his wish.

Ten years after being told about a new building when he was hired at the school, Kramer and his football players will soon have a brand new place to work out and store their gear. The Golden Eagles basketball and volleyball teams are moving into a new home as well.

Construction crews broke ground on Naples High’s new gymnasium at the start of June. The facility, which will include a practice gym, lockers, offices and a weight room, is scheduled to open at the start of the 2009-10 school year. It will mark the end of the school’s current gym, which is nearly a half-century old.

“Naples High is a beautiful school,” said Kramer, whose first season at the school was 1998, “but the fact is our athletics have some of the worst facilities in the state. When I interviewed (for the head coaching job) here, they talked about a new facility then. We’ve needed it longer than that.”

The new gym is being built on the north side of the school’s campus, adjacent to the football stadium. Athletic director Ernie Modugno said it will be the same square footage as the gyms at Golden Gate, Gulf Coast and Palmetto Ridge — the newest schools in the county.

The Naples facility will be approximately 41,500 square feet of building and covered walkways. The project, including demolition of the current gym, will cost $15.5 million.

The funds will come from capital dollars, which are not related to the district’s operating fund and the district’s revenue shortfall.

While it might not seat more fans, the larger building will allow the athletic department more room to function. In the current gym, Modugno said, there are too many offices and locker rooms jammed into a small space.

“It all has to do with the usage of the facility,” he said. “It’s almost not the total number of square feet that’s important, but the way you use it. Right now we’re pretty much maximizing every inch of space we have.”

The new weight room, for example, will double in size, increasing from 1,500 square feet to 3,000. That doesn’t necessarily mean more equipment, but it does mean that the Naples High athletes will have more room to maneuver and accommodate more players.

“During summer (workouts), we have to have extra sessions because we can’t fit all the bodies in at once,” Kramer said. “The extra space will allow us to work more efficiently and train more kids.”

Naples’ new facility is not the first major construction project the Collier County school board has approved this summer. The $2.7 million installation of synthetic turf football fields at Naples, Lely and Immokalee high schools began in May and should be completed in August. Those funds also come from capital dollars.

District facilities director Alvah Hardy wrote in an e-mail to the Daily News that FieldTurf playing surfaces are scheduled to be installed next summer at Golden Gate, Gulf Coast and Palmetto Ridge. After the project is complete, all of the football fields at seven public high schools in Collier County will have synthetic surfaces.

The current Naples High gym has undergone few changes over the years, including some minor updates when the school was renovated 11 years ago. The school district originally looked a major overhaul of the 48-year-old building, but the project would have cost about the same as constructing a new building.

Once the facility opens in June 2009, the old gym will be torn down. The area will be converted into a green space for a future use, as of yet undetermined.

Naples-based Kraft Construction was hired to complete the new gym.