Provo School District Superintendent Randy Merrill got an alarming phone call Tuesday evening about a fire at a new elementary school. Luckily, it was a false alarm.

Lakeview Elementary is not slated to open until the fall, but the school board was scheduled to tour the building site on Wednesday morning.

The bones of the building are complete with walls and a roof. The hallways don't yet have a ceiling, so the inner workings of the building are exposed. Construction is ahead of schedule, according to Merrill.

Provo, Alpine and Nebo school districts all have building projects under way, with new schools scheduled to open in 2008 and 2009. They are also facing rising construction costs. Dave Holdaway, Alpine School District's director of physical facilities, said that in the past three or four years construction costs have risen from about $100 a square foot to about $170 a square foot. Holdaway said the increase has been unprecedented.

In 2006, voters approved a bond to build Lakeview, rebuild Timpanogos Elementary and do other projects in the district. School officials at the time of the election said the Lakeview school was needed to satiate Provo parents' hunger for neighborhood schools. In October, the Provo School Board voted to close Grandview because there weren't enough students to keep all the schools open and spend tax money efficiently. Alpine and Nebo are building new schools because of population growth.

Grandview's staff, including Principal Drew Daniels, will go to the new school, but most of the students will be headed to Westridge Elementary. However, the district has approved a bus to take students who wish to follow their teachers to Lakeview.

Daniels said he is a little sad to leave Grandview behind, but it's not the building he will miss most; he'll miss the students. His new school will be about 75,000 square feet and have more than 30 classrooms.

Provo School District is also rebuilding Timpanogos Elementary School in central Provo. The building was torn down earlier this year and will re-open in fall 2008.

Phil Lott, Provo's director of facilities, said crews are scheduled to pour the third floor of Timpanogos next week, if the weather is good. The school is about 40 percent complete.

"Right now we're ahead of schedule. Things have gone very well," Lott said.

Weather is important, Lott said, because when it gets too cold crews can't lay brick.

Alpine School District is constructing two new schools and is planning for three more. A new elementary school in Eagle Mountain is slated to open in the fall and is 29 percent complete. A new high school in Saratoga Springs is slated to open in fall 2009 and is 33 percent completed. Holdaway said both projects are on schedule.

"I think they'll be done. Other than the usual things that we face on these projects, I don't think we've had any unusual challenges," Holdaway said.

Boundaries for both schools will be finalized Jan. 22. Three new schools, a junior high and two elementary schools are in the planning stages. In Nebo School District, there are three buildings under construction.

Nebo and Alpine school districts are dealing with substantial growth of their student populations. In Alpine district, brand new elementary schools are already crowded.

• Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at blusk@heraldextra.com.