- May 14, 2025
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For decades now MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa has been known as the operations hub for the U.S. military’s missions in the Middle East.
It is home to the U.S. Central Command and the U.S. Special Operations Command, along with several Air Force groups.
But the 5,767-acre base sitting on Tampa Bay may soon be known for something else. A school built with a focus on hurricane resiliency.
Hillsborough County is in the process of building a new Tinker K-8 School on the base that will replace an existing facility with one that is cutting edge and being constructed with an eye on durability and safety.
Construction began earlier this year and a ceremonial groundbreaking was held in early April.
The 135,000-square-foot campus will be built in three phases over the next three years, according to Creative Contractors, a Clearwater firm working on the project. When complete, it will have five new buildings — including multiple two-story classroom wings — a gymnasium, an administrative and media building and a cafeteria with an integrated music hall.
Creative Contractors says the existing school was built in 1952 and expanded in 2015.
The new Tinker school is being built in part with an $86.37 million grant from the Department of Defense.
The grant money, which makes up a portion of the total $107.9 million cost, is meant for Tinker to “expand its capacity and enhance the learning experience for pre-kindergarten through eighth grade students,” the office of U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, says in a statement.
One of the requirements of the funding is that the school be moved out of a special flood area, says Scott Holmes with Indian Shores-based Holmes Architects. That means Tinker is being elevated by two feet above the 100-year floodplain to protect it from flooding.
Other features include using insulated concrete form exterior walls and reinforced foundations to protect it from storms.
The blocks used in the walls are Styrofoam with concrete poured in the middle, says Holmes, describing them as “basically like a big Igloo or Yeti cooler.”
They serve the dual purpose of energy efficiency and resiliency.
The Styrofoam basically “creates a thermal mass which even further enhances the energy efficiency of the building” while the concrete is about the sturdiest material you can use in construction.
“A poured and cast-in-place concrete building is pretty much the strongest thing you can get,” Holmes says. “It's got steel inside the concrete and concrete on top. Its resilient and, in regard to hurricanes, concrete, you can’t beat it.”
The Tinker school sits on 18 acres on the east side of the base, closer to Hillsborough Bay than Tampa Bay.
It is named for General Clarence L. Tinker, the first American Indian in U.S. Army history to receive the rank of major general, according to the Hillsborough County school district’s website. He also has the distinction of being the first American general to die in World War II — his plane vanished during the Battle of Midway.
As for the school that bears his name, it has been part of the Hillsborough school district since 1952 and expanded into a kindergarten through eighth grade school in 2015.
Records show its total enrollment this school year is 524 students.
The existing school building, however, is in need of improvements due to issues with its capacity and its conditions, the Department of Defense said when it announced the $86 million Jan. 23.
A multi-disciplined federal evaluation team found that an upgrade would "improve the quality of education for defense-connected students, aid in the recruitment and retention of vital skills at MacDill Air Force Base and enhance partnerships between the communities and the installation.”
When the work is done, Tinker's capacity will increase to 927 students, the department says.
Those students will have the luxury of attending a state-of-the art and updated school that is not just hurricane resistant, says Josh Bomstein, president and CEO of Creative Contractors.
It will have active learning spaces, advanced fire safety systems and energy-efficient HVAC systems, along with upgraded recreational facilities including ball courts, playgrounds and a new track and field complex.
There will also be redesigned parking areas and pedestrian-friendly causeways.
More importantly, the students will have access to a school built with “an appreciation for the impact that design has on the learning environment,” Bomstein says.
Creative Contractors has been building schools for about 20 years and in that time there’s been a shift among school districts to look at how built environments and the physical structures students operate in have an impact.
“A design that brings in more daylight, has access to views, has flexible spaces and proper circulation space and all of that feels better,” Bomstein says.
“You know, it’s just sort of common sense that it would help to create a better learning and teaching environment.”
And that it can withstand a hurricane, well, that is just a bonus.
