A change in the design of the seventh and eighth grade wing at Andalusia High School has set the bidding process back slightly, Superintendent Ted Watson said Wednesday.

“It has been backed up because there was a design change,” he said. “In the new design, we have taken the center stairs out to make for more classroom space on the second floor. There will still be stairs on each end of the building as it is at Andalusia High School.”

Watson said the bid process has been moved back until March 7 because the Alabama Building Commission hasn’t signed off on the new plans. It was originally scheduled for mid-to-late February.

“We’re hoping to move the whole process along so that we can move in during the summer of 2014,” he said. “We don’t want to move in during the school year.”

The wing is one of two new wings being built at AHS and Andalusia Elementary School as part of the Andalusia Board of Education’s plan to close to Middle School in the fall of 2014, and move sixth graders to AES and seventh and eighth graders to AHS.

The new wing at AHS will face Fourth Avenue.

The project is being paid for by a $5.5 million bond issue, in which the City of Andalusia has pledged 2.5 mills per year of property taxes for the duration.