ABOVE: Crews from Wells Concrete use a 140 ft. tall crane to move exterior wall panels of Martin County West’s new school building into place on Friday afternoon in Sherburn.

SHERBURN– “We’re really building a school,” Martin County West (MCW) School Superintendent Cori Reynolds said on Friday as she watched crews from Wells Concrete put up the first exterior wall panels of the new school building in Sherburn.

While work began soon after the groundbreaking on May 27 of this year, Reynolds noted that it’s all been underground so the erection of the columns and precast walls are the first signs of above ground movement.

Of course, work goes back even further when you look at the planning process. After the first referendum vote failed in November of 2023, the school board and the district’s consultants began to rework plans for the school, shaving off some of the costs. Then, on May 14, 2024, the $64.7 million bond referendum for a new K-12 school building in Sherburn passed.

Over this past summer, Reynolds said that a lot of trees had to be cleared out, which changed the look of the whole site next to the current high school building.

“Then they started moving dirt around and there were many trucks coming in and out of the site,” Reynolds explained.

Then the underground work started, including installing an exterior outline of the building. In October work on underground utilities, electrical and plumbing started. Reynolds noted that the weather through most of November was very cooperative, which has helped keep them on schedule.

“Really all of the underground stuff is done at this point,” Reynolds said.

On Monday of this week, a large, roughly 140 ft. tall crane came on site to start bringing the project up out of the ground, which Reynolds said felt like a big milestone.

“Wells (Concrete) has been working on fabricating the panels for the last many weeks and as soon as we can get some weather to cooperate, those will start being installed, too,” Reynolds said.

That work began on Friday and crews will continue to work as much as they’re able to over the winter months.

“The goal is to get those exterior walls up quickly so they can start on inside work during the winter,” Reynolds explained.

She said the schedule is very ambitious and very tight.

Sam Prescher, project manager with R.A. Morton, the construction management firm on the project, said that the precast is expected to be done in 60 working days, which will bring them into February.

“It’s depending on wind and weather,” he added.

R.A. Morton has done a number of other school building projects across the state and is currently working on one in the Hills-Beaver Creek School District. It’s also done some jail facilities.

“We’ve done a lot of government work, and this is pretty similar to that with the security and electronics,” Prescher said.

Flipping through the pages and pages of blueprints for the two-story, 167,000 square foot school building, it’s apparent that a lot of planning goes into the project.

“I know that one thing people struggle with in this process is that it takes so long and everything is so expensive. A lot of people around here build a house or machine shed or hog barn, but in terms of complexity and the regulations required, this can’t compare,” Reynolds said.

She shared that almost half a million dollars has been spent on permitting alone. However, she pointed out that the fact that it’s tightly regulated is a good thing.

“We want to know someone is out here making sure that the footings are where they’re supposed to be to hold up a building that will house generations of kids and adults,” Reynolds said.

She thinks that once people in the community can better see a visual of the work, they’ll become more excited about what’s to come.

As for how it’s affecting the students, Reynolds said, “at this point I haven’t heard noise or vibration or anything like that interrupting the school day, but the kids are definitely very interested.”

The plan is still for all students to be in the new building for the 2027-28 school year.

Reynolds did share that the end of next school year may look different as the current high school building will need to be torn down in order for the parking lot and some other features to be built where it currently stands.

However, the phase of the project that they’re currently in is one that Reynolds said was exciting. She shared how people can stay up to date on the progress.

“ISG (architect and engineer) has set up a construction update website that’s linked to the school district’s website. It’s a great spot for people to go and check out the progress,” Reynolds said.