The Cobb County Board of Education's 4-3 vote Thursday night to split the Harrison High ninth-grade center from the rest of the school's SPLOST-funded work will likely cost money as well as time.

An architect who worked with BRPH of Vinings, awarded the design work for the $14.5 million Harrison project in February 2011 at the end of the same meeting in which the school board dropped the balanced calendar, said the architects will be back to Square One to design the maintenance and renovations without the ninth-grade building, The Marietta Daily Journal reported.

As discussed during Thursday's meeting, the new ninth-grade building was also planned as the home of a new cafeteria and choral room because the existing school lacks room for those additions.

Cobb County School District staff told school board members that such a change would delay the project beyond this summer because of the need to redesign and rebid the work.

Staff and board members in favor of sticking with the full project, most notably West Cobb's Lynnda Eagle, also discussed the likelihood of higher construction prices when the ninth-grade center is built at an undetermined time in the future.

But no one at the meeting put a price on the likely wasted design work. The MDJ got the total from Cobb Deputy Superintendent Chris Ragsdale: $460,000.