Collapse of Gulf Shores High School Training Facility Under Review

GULF SHORES, Ala.
By Dale Hines
January 28, 2025

After a partial collapse of an outdoor sports pavilion that was under construction at the site of the new Gulf Shores High School, many people have come to see for themselves, but school officials are asking that they don’t.

Grant Brown, Public Information Officer for the City of Gulf Shores, said that they are asking people just to stay away from the site. There is no reason to have people out there, he said.

The collapse is believed to have occurred early Monday morning, possibly between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.

The sports facility was being built on the Foley Beach Expressway side of the construction site.

“It was about a seven and a half million-dollar project that was added on to the initial high school construction, the construction of the new high school, and this is a covered practice facility with artificial turf and associated locker rooms and other facilities,” said Grant Brown, Public Information Officer for the City of Gulf Shores.

At this time, engineers and the construction company are trying to determine the cause of the collapse.

“It looks like a catastrophic collapse. The steel girders came down. It looks like there was some construction equipment that was inside that area as well. It can take a while to take it apart once they figure out what happened, Brown said.

“If this tragedy is going to occur, obviously you do not want there to be people involved. The good news was it happened when nobody was there. We do ask people just to stay away from the site. There is no reason to have people out there,” he said.

Brown says the actual high school building which is expected to be ready in the summer of 2026 was not affected by the collapse.

In 2017, a football practice complex at the University of South Alabama also collapsed and later the official cause was determined to be “inadequate bracing during construction.

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