By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
With all three questions of the Northfield High Schools renovation referendum passing, the district is now moving to the project’s design phase At last Monday’s School Board, Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann shared the plan for the next steps.
The first step in the project is forming the Project Overview Team, which consists of Hillmann, the Districts Facilities Director Justin Raabolle, the Districts Finance Director Val Mertesdorf, representatives from the high school team, members of the School Board, the architect and general contractor for the project. Hillmann said that this group typically only has overseas high-level items and is given powers by the school board to make some financial choices up to a set dollar amount.
Hillmann noted that the district was continuing to work with Wold Architects and Knutson Construction, both who had worked on building the new Greenvale Park Elementary, renovating the old Greenvale building into the Community Education Center, and renovations of Bridgewater and Spring Creek Elementary. Hillmann pointed to the record of the two companies as the reason the district is keeping with them:
“This is a time when I think we go back and look at the success of the 2018 bond referendum projects. Those projects were on time, they were on budget, and 60% of the construction time was during the pandemic. And so we have receipts of how these two firms have worked with us in the past and we would like to run it back with them.” – Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann at the 11/12/2024 School Board Meeting
The project’s next step is the Core Planning Team, which sets the design principles but, as Hillmann stated, “not where the lightbulbs go.” For the Greenvale project, the design team consisted of nearly 30 people. Depending on interest, the group could also consist of focus groups and subcommittees focusing on specific design parts. The group will include any interested community members involved in the high school. Applications for the group will be available later this week. Once the group is formed they will begin meeting in December and also visit other high schools to get feedback and ideas. Hillmann noted that while visiting schools like Owatonna and Waseca, these are to get ideas, not to replicate the schools:
“Were not trying to replicate what those schools have done. Were trying to look at the design mechanisms and what are the things we would like to see in the final project.” – Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann at the 11/12/2024 School Board Meeting
After collecting the feedback from the Core Planning Team, the architects will begin drafting plans and designs for the high school, which then move to the last review group, the user groups. The TUser groups consisted of the people who use a specific space. During this project review phase, the focus is very narrow and incredibly specific. The architects then work with each group to make the space work both to their requests, to the budget, and to code. After that, the input will be made to make a final design and prepare to advertise bids later next year.
