ABOVE: A drawing of the proposed new school building for the Martin County West School District.

SHERBURN– It’s been several months since Martin County West School District’s second school facility bond referendum for $64.7 million passed by 65 votes. Since then, much work has been done in preparing for the new school building in Sherburn which will house all students grades pre K through 12.

Superintendent Cori Reynolds said the first thing that was done after the vote passed on May 14 was to put together a core planning group consisting of school board members, administration, staff, students and community members.

“We took a bus load to five or six other schools, including new builds and heavy remodels, so that we could find design features that we were interested in,” Reynolds said.

Rather than go with just a traditional school building with classrooms down both sides of the hallway, Reynolds said they’re interested in collaboration spaces or classrooms arranged around a pod.

Feedback was received on each of the school buildings toured and Reynolds said that she enjoyed that the group was able to talk to people who work within the school buildings to hear what they liked and didn’t like so much about the work done to their building.

The tour was done in June and Reynolds said the rest of the summer was busy as well. She said the architects from ISG also met with MCW’s staff several times over the summer.

“When they were looking at the gyms they pulled in all of the phy ed teachers and coaches to talk about what they needed. They did that with all of the spaces and met with everyone twice in the summer,” Reynolds said. “It does not do anyone any good for me to share my opinion on what our cafeteria and kitchen should look like because I don’t work in those spaces. We wanted to hear from the people who work in the spaces on what they needed and wanted.”

While gathering that feedback was time intensive, Reynolds said it was very valuable. The whole time that information was being gathered, the core planning group was also meeting to go over details.

At one point, Reynolds said the group needed to decide whether it wanted a one story or two story building and to Reynold’s amusement, she said it was decided that two stories made more sense so that’s what is being planned for.

Right now the schematic design drawings are done but it’s not the end-all be-all plan.

“The process is like a funnel. It’s getting more and more detailed. The ideas are being flushed out and made into a potential building,” Reynolds said.

The schematic design is the first big landmark to be done in the long process. Next, Reynolds said design development will happen over the next few months.

“That’s when we’re looking at the guts– structural, mechanical, plumbing, electrical– we’re looking at finishes and if each space is going to have carpet or hard flooring,” Reynolds explained.

It’s expected that that process will be done in February. Then the next stage is putting together construction documents, which means the plans are finalized enough to go out for bids.

The district’s construction manager, R.A. Morton, will put together the documents and help the district with the bid process when the time comes. Reynolds anticipates that they will be ready to go out for bid in May.

Soon after the bid is awarded, Reynolds would like to hold the groundbreaking ceremony at the end of the current school year so that students can be involved in it.

The new school building will be located near where the football field currently is and nothing can happen to the existing three school buildings– high school, elementary school, middle school– until the new building is complete because students will still need somewhere to go to school.

Right now it’s expected that students will be in the yew school building for the start of the 2027 school year.

As for what will be done with the existing buildings, Reynolds said they are still unsure but that they’re working with a commercial retailer to find out potential uses for the buildings.

She said that they have started taking some steps toward taking care of the Welcome school building, that was built in 1904, and has not been used by the district in recent years, but that it’s on hold for now.

“No one wants to tear down a building if there’s a use for it,” Reynolds said.

However, she said that when the time comes and the new building is about done, the current high school building, built in 1956, will need to be torn down to make room for a parking lot and other things that have to be on the site.

Speaking to the longevity of the new school building, Reynolds said, “my hope is that we build it really well, maintain it very well, so that it stands in good stead for a long time and outlives us by decades or more.”

She said that they will keep maintenance in mind when it comes to budgeting so that they can be on top of replacing carpeting and getting fresh coats of paint when it’s needed.

Speaking of the budget, Reynolds shared another exciting thing regarding the process that happened over the summer.

“In going through the credit rating process, we got a really strong A rating,” she said.

Reynolds admitted she was surprised with the rating given some budget challenges, but that she believes it was granted because of their ability to understand why the district is in the budget situation that it’s in and that it has plans to manage it wisely moving forward.

“We were rated and then we sold the bonds. The day of the sale, the district got really favorable results and an amazing interest rate below 4 percent. We got $5.8 million extra in premium that taxpayers do not have to pay back,” Reynolds said.

Because of those two things happening, taxpayers will save money over the life of the bond in interest costs. The bond referendum passed with a 20 year bond at a 5 percent interest rate, but in reality it will be a 20 year bond at around a 4 percent interest rate.

Reynolds is feeling good about where they’re at in the project and said she believes many people in the community feel good about it, too. While at a recent candidate forum, Reynolds said she heard people running for both city council and the school board talk about the new building.

“They want to capitalize on the energy and excitement that that’s brought to our community and use it as a catalyst to further develop our community,” Reynolds said.

She pointed out that when the construction workers come to town, they’ll be buying gas and food and staying locally.

“Not only will we eventually have this beautiful new building, but we’ll have an influx of people working here and spending their money here for a few years. It’s an exciting time to be thinking about what more could be built here,” Reynolds said.

Anyone who wants to keep up to date on the project can check out the school district’s website at www.martin.k12.mn.us.