as the lead project manager. The original budget was $16,900,000 United States dollars. The construction costs totaled $24.4 million, and the final costs, including books, computers, and architect engineers, totaled $31 million. The previous campus had a capacity of 1,500 students; because enrollment was 1,700 as of fall 2004 Pershing had to cap enrollment of the 6th and 7th grades. The school district had to adjust its plans for Pershing's campus due to the unexpected surge in enrollment. The new building was built on the previous athletic fields, and the previous building was to close after the opening of the new one. After demolition of the previous building, the new athletic fields would go on its former site. The new building opened on Thursday, January 18, 2007; originally the building was slated to open the previous day, but weather conditions lead to the temporary closing of all HISD schools for January 17. Portions of the former Pershing building remain because many chimney swift birds appeared in the chimney. The Migratory Bird Act makes the act of tearing down the Pershing chimney illegal. In April 2014 two librarians at the school were informed that budget cuts would eliminate their positions. Michelle Leigh Smith of the Village News and Southwest News stated that "parents believe many of HISD Superintendent Terry Grier's policies are tearing the district apart" and that because principal Kim Heckman "is considered one of Grier's rising stars" therefore "[s]ome believe Heckman is carrying out his agenda" at Pershing. Neighborhoods served by Pershing Pershing, which is located in the Braeswood Place neighborhood, serves several areas of Houston that are in and out of the 610 Loop, including Braeswood Place, Linkwood, Knollwood Village, Woodshire, Woodside, Westridge, Southgate, Old Braeswood, Morningside Place, Westwood, Link Valley, a portion of Meyerland, a portion of Maplewood, and Sunset Terrace/Montclair. In addition to portions of Houston, Pershing also serves the cities of Bellaire, Southside Place, and West University Place. Rice Village Apartments and Morningside Square, two Rice University graduate housing complexes that admit families, are zoned to this school. Around the early 1990s portions of the City of Bellaire west of the 610 Loop were zoned to Jane Long Middle School, while portions inside the 610 Loop were zoned to Pershing. about 600 students, one third of the students at Pershing, do not live in the school's attendance zone, and about 600 students that year who