Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Design-Build Firm Leads Five K–12 Projects in Colorado

  • By Matt Jones
  • 10/24/23

Design-build firm The Neenan Company recently announced progress on five education projects in the state of Colorado, according to a news release. The renovations and replacements are intended to help each individual school achieve programming goals and provide students with spaces that promote opportunity, wellness, and safety.

“We are in the business of strengthening communities, and schools are fundamental to each community. It is our honor to use our expertise to enhance the safety, wellbeing and opportunities for the students of each of our projects,” said Neenan Senior Architect David Kurtz. “We believe that it is critical to build with our hearts, taking the time to view each of these communities as an extension of our own. With this, we find holistic solutions that are both efficient and help each school operate at their highest potential.”

The five projects include:

  • Peetz Plateau School District: Neenan led 75,000 square feet of renovations and additions to the district’s only preK–12 school. The space was designed to serve the community at large while also making student safety a priority. The facility’s previous complex system of hallways was replaced with a simpler layout which allows staff members to look down into each wing from the center of the building. The project is also aiming for a CHPS certification.
  • Dove Creek School District: Neenan broke ground on a 30,000-square-foot replacement for the district’s elementary school, which serves 118 students. The new elementary school will become a preK–12 campus that also houses district administration offices. Neenan also worked with the district to apply for—and win—a BEST grant.
  • Colorado Early Colleges: Neenan completed its third building on the Colorado Springs CEC campus, which serves students in elementary school through high school. The 51,000-square-foot renovated space plays home to students from the CEC Everest Point Homeschool Academy.
  • Greeley Key Explorers: A 5,100-square-foot adaptive reuse project transformed a retail space into a preschool in Greeley, Colo. The standalone building includes six classrooms, five single-use restrooms, and a warming kitchen, and it offers ADA accessibility.
  • Weldon Valley School District: Neenan previously added a middle/high-school wing and an elementary school wing to the historic structure. BEST grant funding will allow for the next phase of renovations: a full-size, wheelchair-accessible gym; an updated kitchen; and a vocational education workshop.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Cleveland High School Breaks Ground on Modernization

    Portland Public Schools in Portland, Ore., recently announced that construction has begun on a modernization project for Cleveland High School, according to a news release. The existing building will be replaced with a new, 300,000-square-foot facility at the same site.

  • Rethinking K-12 Schools as a Continuous Learning Experience

    Most students move through three or more separate facilities during their K-12 journey, yet the built environments they encounter at each stage have traditionally been designed in isolation, with little continuity in spatial language, learning philosophy, or physical resources. Each new school is a reset with different layouts, learning models, expectations, and ways of moving through a building. The next generation of school design is making the case that the first day of kindergarten and the last day of high school can and should feel connected through common support systems and infrastructure in the physical environment.

  • Minnesota District Opens New PreK–12 School

    Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop Schools in Gibbon, Minn., recently announced that construction is complete on a new, $68.9-million school for students in grades PreK–12, according to a news release.

  • URI Cuts Underwater Ribbon on New Ocean Robotics Laboratory

    The University of Rhode Island recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Ocean Robotics Laboratory at its Narragansett Bay Campus, according to a news release. Two students used a remotely operated vehicle to cut an underwater ribbon in a 30-by-20-foot test tank.