Boscobel school referendum project making progress on new additions

BOSCOBEL, Wis. (WRCO/WRCE) – For the first time since the 1960’s, Boscobel’s main school facility will be expanding.

Voters in the Boscobel Area School District approved a $21.5 million facilities referendum in 2023, which will add a new 1,200-seat gym and nearly a dozen classrooms to the existing middle-high school on Brindley St.

The project will close the city’s iconic Rock School, a historic building that was built in 1898, as a school facility. It will also close the annex building next door.

Pre-K through third grade students will be placed in the elementary school across the street, while fourth and fifth grade students will be moved up to the new addition at the middle-high school.

Boscobel administrators said the referendum is the first phase of a long-range plan is to eventually move all of the students and staff to one site. That was attempted in a previous referendum that failed in 2017.

Because of rising costs of materials and labor in the years since, as well as the overwhelming impact on property taxes that those costs would have, the district couldn’t move all grades into one building with the passed referendum. Instead, the district is consolidating from four buildings to two with the referendum, as well as some of its fund balance.

District offices are currently housed in the annex building, but with enough money saved up over the past several years, district administrators and the school board approved a plan to use some of that money to relocate the district offices to the middle-high school site as part of the new additions.

It’s not the only thing that is being added in on top of the referendum’s approved projects. Capital maintenance and facility updates to areas of the district that weren’t listed as part of the referendum will also be covered with money the district has saved over the years, such as replacing failing lights at its football and track complex and repairing the siding of the existing middle-high school. Most of those additional projects come with some expected savings of already having construction crews on site.

The project itself began in earnest in May, when the district held a groundbreaking ceremony. Shortly after school let out for the summer, the real work began as crews began digging footings for the new additions.

On Thursday, the final “large pour” of the project was held, the flooring for the gym addition. 24 concrete trucks were used to get all of the materials delivered, with trucks arriving every seven minutes during the pour.

The new gym will seek to address an issue that Boscobel has had with a lack of sports facility space. Currently, the district is utilizing its main gym, which seats a little over half of what the new gym will hold, and a smaller side gym with a tile floor and no room for spectators. Other indoor sporting events are held in the Blaine Gym downtown, a facility that doesn’t have a regulation-sized court and limited seating.

The elementary and district office additions will be on the southeast side of the school complex. In addition to the space additions, the two main entrances for the school will receive major security updates as well.

With the additions, the district had to remove its on-campus baseball field. Baseball games will now move to Kronshage Park, where one of the two softball diamonds is being converted for baseball. Boscobel’s softball team already uses one of the diamonds for its games. However, the loss of a ball field means the city has just three total fields, including the two at Kronshage.

On the other hand, the district will now have four available basketball courts and a dedicated wrestling space. The new gym will also hold six pickleball courts, two parallel basketball or volleyball courts, and enough space for other community or district events.

The project manager, Findorff, said that construction is on schedule despite recent heavy rains. The roof of the new gym will be placed in September, and the new additions will be ready for use by the start of the 2025-2026 school year.

A long list of other facility updates, such as ADA accessibility, parking, playground equipment, water drainage, and locker room renovations, is also being done.

An aerial video of the project shows the expansion of the school to the south.

You can see more information about the referendum project’s progress on the district’s website.