SALISBURY — North Main Street commuters have likely seen some changes taking place at Henderson Independent School.

The Rowan-Salisbury School System’s campus is undergoing a bit of a facelift. The cafeteria that had been the subject of discussion for some time was demolished earlier this month. Meanwhile, a crew with Swartz Building Solutions Inc. has spent the last half week preparing the site for and installing nine pods behind the main building.

“We are stripping everything on these buildings and getting all the shipping walls out,” Project manager RJ Swartz said on Monday. “Now, we are going to start with the first one and connect them as we come out.

While delivery of these large classroom-sized pods required individual transportation, that is not how they will remain.  

“All nine will be connected by the time we are done,” Swartz said. “Inside, you will have one restroom space and every one of the other ones will be classrooms. They have whiteboards already on the inside of them … they look great inside. I love the gray and black. These are some of the prettiest buildings I have done in a long time.”

Swartz said that the pods being installed are not just for schools, although that is one primary purpose.

“I do cancer treatment facilities, jails, dorms, you name it,” Swartz said. “We can actually stack these on top of each other. We can go up four or five stories. You can do a lot of stuff with these things and they will last just like a normal stick-built building as long as you take care of them.”

Last week’s winter weather caused a slight hold up on the delivery of the pods as massive ice storms moved across the American Southeast. 

“We just needed to get the buildings here,” Swartz said. “We wanted them all here and our main thing last week was getting them in here before the snow came. We did not want to open up the plastic and have the building exposed to the weather and elements.” 

The pods’ eight-hour journey to Salisbury began all the way from south Georgia. 

“They came from Titan Modular Systems (Alma, Georgia),” Swartz said. 

The Rowan-Salisbury School System received approval from the Salisbury Historic Preservation Commission last year to demolish the breezeway between the school building and cafeteria and to install a large mobile classroom unit in the rear yard of Henderson Independent School. 

At the time, Jeff Holshouser, construction manager for RSSS, said that the school system was applying for the temporary classroom pod because there was ongoing renovation on the campus, and the structure would allow the school to continue its operations. 

The pods are 126 feet by 60 feet and include eight classrooms and would be installed in the rear yard of the property.  

“We have a moderate renovation going on on a third of the campus and this will allow us to be able to house and educate the students and to buy more time to figure out a better way to address the issues with the main building,” Holshouser said.

Robert Sullivan contributed to this story.