Owatonna Public Schools in Minnesota recently completed the $99 million, 317,000-sf Owatonna High School for Independent School District 761.
The school, which accommodates 1,600 students, has classroom and lab spaces supporting career pathways toward nursing, culinary arts, digital fabrication, science and engineering, publishing and digital content creation. Students can earn certificates, college credits, and career credentials, said Jeff Elstad, superintendent of Owatonna Publics Schools.
The project’s Building Team was led by Wold Architects & Engineers and the construction manager Kraus-Anderson. Federated Insurance, which is headquartered in Owatonna, donated $20 million plus the land for the new high school. Other private donors, contributing more than $4 million, included Mayo Clinic Health System, Viracon, Wenger Corporation and Wenger Foundation (Wenger’s name is on the school’s performing arts center), Gopher Sport, Life Fitness/Cybex, Owatonna Foundation, and 761 Foundation.
St. Paul-based Wold had been attached to this project for nearly a decade. “We are excited to see how this school realizes the district’s vision for education for many years to come, and becomes a role model for the area in high school education,” said Paul Aplikowski, a Partner at Wold, in a prepared statement.
School offers a sense of home
This school construction is part of a $112 million district bond referendum, which voters passed in November 2019. Construction began in May 2021 and was completed last August. The new building combines structural steel and precast concrete, with an exterior facade comprised of brick and metal panels along with a substantial amount of glazing to bring abundant natural light into the building.
The main curtain wall at the entrance to the building is 66 ft wide by 31 ft tall. Interior finishes include terrazzo flooring throughout the commons and fitness areas, prefinished interior panels in the auditorium, and numerous locations of tile, hardwood panels and metal panels covering the walls and column wraps.
The three-story school on 90 acres features a commons area that, according to Wold, evokes a town square. The classrooms are designed to provide a sense of home and place.
The campus includes a 3,451-seat football stadium, two multipurpose athletic fields and two grass fields, eight tennis courts, two softball fields, two baseball fields, a gymnasium, and an 825-seat auditorium. The campus also has four storage buildings for athletics, and 890 parking spaces.
“Owatonna Public Schools has been a fantastic partner during the entire construction process, where close communication and coordination was needed to meet all expectations,” said Michael Stenbeck, Kraus-Anderson’s project manager, in a prepared statement. “It has been amazing to witness jaws drop as students and the community walk into the new facility.”
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Burr Elementary School
In planning the Burr Elementary School in Fairfield, Conn., the school's building committee heeded the words of William Wordsworth: Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher. They selected construction manager Turner Construction Company, New York, and the New York office of A/E firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to integrate nature on the heavily wooded 15.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Trenton Daylight/Twilight High School Trenton, N.J.
The story of the Trenton Daylight/Twilight High School is one of renewal and rebirth—both of the classic buildings that symbolize the city's past and the youth that represent its future. The $39 million, 101,000-sf urban infill project locates the high school—which serves recent dropouts and students who are at risk of dropping out—within three existing vacant buildings.
| Aug 11, 2010
New school designs don't go by the book
America needs more schools. Forty-five percent of the nation's elementary, middle, and high schools were built between 1950 and 1969, according market research firm ZweigWhite, Natick, Mass. Yet even as the stock of K-12 schools ages and declines, school enrollments continue to climb. The National Center for Education Statistics predicts that enrollment in public K-12 schools will keep rising...
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Lincoln High School Tacoma, Wash.
Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash., was built in 1913 and spent nearly a century morphing into a patchwork of outdated and confusing additions. A few years ago, the Tacoma School District picked Lincoln High School, dubbed “Old Main,” to be the first high school in the district to be part of its newly launched Small Learning Communities program.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Hawthorne Elementary School, Elmhurst, Ill.
At 121 years, Hawthorne School is the oldest elementary school building in the Elmhurst, Ill., school district and a source of pride for the community. Unfortunately, decades of modifications and short-sighted planning had rendered it dysfunctional in terms of modern educational delivery. At the same time, increasing enrollment was leading to overcrowding, with the result that the library, for ...
