New school section closer to completion

Weather moves back finishing date 2 weeks
By: 
Lee Pulaski
City Editor

GRESHAM — Work is still underway on a $6.5 million renovation for Gresham Community School that will provide modern classrooms for middle and high school classes, and it’s a source of community pride.

“We have some people who drive by weekly to see what progress has been made,” said Newell Haffner, superintendent for the Gresham School District.

Much of the exterior is complete, despite unsettled weather this fall that set construction crews back two weeks from their original schedule. The delays mean that the construction work will be finished by mid-January instead of the end of December, but it’s not a cause for concern, as school officials weren’t planning to occupy the new section until late April or early May.

Moving current equipment from the old classrooms to the new classrooms, as well as hauling in new equipment, will be no problem, according to Haffner. He said community members always come out in force to help whenever the school needs volunteers.

“I’m always amazed that the community wants to do stuff at the school. When we have community service days, we get a decent number of people,” Haffner said. “Now, when I ask to move the school, I may get too many people.”

Even with the delays, Kraus Anderson, the construction firm building this phase of the project, was able to get the walls and roof in place before the weather turned cold and snow started to fall last week, according to Mark Hammas, the superintendent for the building project.

“Next week, it’s not supposed to get above freezing,” he said, noting that having the walls and roof in place will minimize the need to bring in heating equipment.

The project is staying on budget for the most part, although the district had to tap $30,000 in contingency funds when the agriculture classrooms needed to be moved closer to the existing greenhouse, Haffner said.

Hammas said the change was no big deal, considering the project has managed to yield few surprises.

“I’ve been on projects where things have gone up and down and back and forth,” Hammas said.

The new wing of the school is also set up for community use, according to Haffner. The district is looking at partnering with Northeast Wisconsin Technical College and the College of Menominee Nation to offer adult welding, fabrication and other technology education classes at night. The setup allows use of that section without admitting people into the main portion of the school.

“We have to build it first, and then we’ll start finding those community partnerships,” Haffner said.

The construction of the classrooms is just the first phase. Future phases include building a new cafeteria and commons area and demolishing the oldest portion of the existing building, built in 1935. Those projects are scheduled to take place in 2020.

“I’m excited for phase two with the commons. We’ve never had a commons area before,” Haffner said. “We’ve never had a gathering point for anything.”

Currently, the cafeteria is in the southern portion of the school gymnasium. The relocation will allow for more activities to take place in that space, which has always seen multiple entities squeezed into it for activities like sports and community events, the annual musical and more.

Now that the new section is edging closer to completion, Haffner is pleased with how everything is turning out.

“We’ve made the money go as far as we can go, and we’ve made some smart decisions,” he said.