More on the Multipurpose Training Facility Southern Door Wants Voters to Approve

Southern Door School District’s request for $14.9 million would fund renovations, a parking-lot expansion, and three new buildings, all shown in red above. These include a 25,000-square-foot indoor training facility plus a weight room, a 1,400-square-foot greenhouse and a 5,000-square-foot bus garage. Source: Southern Door School District.

The multipurpose training facility that the Southern Door School District wants to build is the most expensive of the projects contained in a $14.9 million capital-improvement plan that the district wants voters to approve in November.

Superintendent Chris Peterson confirmed that last week while releasing more detailed descriptions of the buildings that would be constructed if voters approve the measure. The district administration and board also have a $975,000-per-year referendum request on the ballot that would renew funding for operations for the next three years.

The capital projects include constructing the new multipurpose training facility and a bus garage, and improving elementary and middle school art rooms; technical-, family- and consumer-education areas; and agriculture-education areas, including a new greenhouse. The district office would move from a house in front of the school into the current fitness-center space, and a contractor would demolish the ranch-style house to create more parking space.

Peterson said the indoor multipurpose training facility – which the district would make available for community use – would likely cost the most out of the list of projects, with exact costs dependent on bidding and materials. The facility would be used by sports teams, but also for band practices, physical-education classes and assemblies. 

Beneath what’s intended to be high ceilings and a peaked, steel roof, the district could provide plenty of practice space and room for a wider variety of activities on bad-weather days.

“We get into the spring sports, and our baseball, softball and track teams can’t be outside because we still have piles of snow on our fields,” Peterson said. “This would allow our kids to have access to an indoor facility.”

Students currently use the Eagle Gym, but Peterson said it’s not conducive to throwing softballs or baseballs.

“We have to put nets and screens up,” he said. “We have bleachers that get damaged.”

The facility would contain a field of indoor, synthetic turf that’s 30 yards long, plus a 10-yard end zone, and room around the field’s perimeter. 

“Fifty or 60 yards [for the field] would be better, but we want to be realistic about what we’re asking for,” Peterson said.

The multipurpose facility also would include the weight room, which would be moved from its current location at the front and center of the school. 

Peterson said the multipurpose space would be taller than the gymnasium because district officials want a peaked roof rather than a flat one, which would need repairs and have leaks sooner. Plus, Peterson said, “Down the middle, you would be able to get more arc on a pass.”

The superintendent said the exterior would not need any extravagances.

“At the base, the first five or six feet would probably be block, and then it’s basically a pole building beyond that and up,” he said. “We want to make sure we do something that’s going to give us longevity. We won’t cut corners and then have to pay for more maintenance down the road.”

Peterson said the other two construction projects included in the referendum would not be nearly as large as the multipurpose building. 

One would replace an existing greenhouse with one that’s roughly 24 feet by 90 feet and detached from the school to provide longer periods of light. The current greenhouse misses out on several hours’ worth of natural light because of its location against the school. 

The larger greenhouse would expand on the hydroponic growing stations the district already has, and it would allow more room for hands-on, real-life lessons in horticulture.

“We have a large farming community, and we want to be able to add more agricultural studies to our course offerings,” Peterson said. “Having a functioning greenhouse is going to be much, much better.”

The new bus garage would accommodate storage and indoor repairs.

“It would be large enough to have some of our lawn equipment, and it would have to be long enough to pull one bus inside to work on it,” Peterson said.

The preliminary site plan for all the capital improvements is done and will be mailed to all district addresses.

“It’s in a referendum information packet that’s going to go out soon,” Peterson said. The information also went up Sept. 9 on the district’s website at sdsd.k12.wi.us.