SHELDON—CMBA Architects in Sioux City has some bright ideas for the exterior of the soon-to-be renovated Sheldon High School.

The company is in charge of the design of the high school, and while the layout of the building was shown before the $19 million bond vote on Nov. 7, CMBA did not start work on the exterior plans until the renovations were officially green lighted by the vote, allowing the company to move forward with more designs for the $33 million renovation project.

The Sioux City firm showed off the designs for the exterior during Sheldon School District Board of Education meeting on Wednesday, March 13, which featured designs of the front, the northeast corner and the east entrance.

CMBA principal architect Lee Beukelman reminded the board the designs were still preliminary and “it’s still your project.”

Superintendent Cory Myer said he is not aware of a desire of any major changes by the board as of Monday evening but “that could change at any time.”

The two biggest parts of the renovation included the front entrance and the northeast corner of the building.

The front entrance would feature five slabs that spell out ORABS and would be illuminated at night.

“The goal was to try and be big, to make a statement,” said CMBA architect David Brockshus. “Provide signage out to the highway out there, something large enough you can see it and say, ‘Hey, there’s the school over there.’”

The front entrance would keep the bell that is displayed by the building and would have a sign for Sheldon High School in front.

“The idea here is really trying to play up that front entrance for people coming in for a basketball game or whatever,” Beukelman said. “Really making that stand out from the street at night. You’re driving by and making a statement for the school with your front signage and your entire site.”

The northeast corner would feature the weight room addition and would have windows around the room similar to the current library at the high school.

Brockshus said windows were key when designing the building. Besides the library, there are few windows in the current high school.

The northeast corner would feature the largest windows.

“Our goal is to bring as many kinds of larger windows as we can into the building,” Brockshus said. “This is kind of our statement corner; this is where we’re trying to spend most of our effort in terms of ‘Let’s make a statement here.’ The cool thing is you will have a lovely opportunity for some graphics on the wall there for inside your weight room to kind of make that a signature piece for the school.”

The east entrance to the school also was featured in the design since that will become a secure entrance in the renovation. While the design was not as flashy as the proposed front entrance, the east entrance still would get some signage on a canopy.

“We realize due to the functionality of where the parking lot sits in relation to other activities happening, it’s still going to be one of your essential main doors into the building,” Brockshus said. “We wanted to try and identify that on the facades, so people don’t accidentally end up at the north door when they need to go the east entrance. So, we tried to take the same design care at that entrance as we have at this north entrance.”

The designs feature a building that is part brick and part metal facade. The current building is brick, and Brockshus said CMBA wanted to incorporate that into the future design.

“We still want to use a little bit of that, but with some of the budget constraints that we had, we’re just using some of it, and we’re fairly selective in the areas which we’re using it,” Brockshus said. “Along the front, we’re using it as kind of a protection piece for the windows and then for the metal panels, so it’s going to be used primarily below the metal panels.”

Above the some of the brick are metal panels and some of the panels will be silver-colored perforating panels.

“We have a lot of kind of flatter facades; there’s nothing that really sticks out. We wanted to use that profile shape to bring some texture to the building, so it’s not kind of one flat mass,” Brockshus said. “We thought that if we had a solid metal panel across that whole run, it would start to feel heavy and big. By taking the same color, we’re putting little holes in it, and that starts to kind of lighten up that facade and make it not feel like as extreme of a barrier.

“It also gives us some opportunities for some lighting and some kind of different, fun textures to put on the building.”

The west side of the building, which will have the choir and band rooms along with the art room, will feature a more brick along with some large bay windows.

“There will be a good amount of daylight into each one of those, and there will probably be shades in there if they need to control that,” Beukelman said. “Just the desire to have windows, they’re going to definitely have their fair share on that side.”

Once CMBA is finished with the full designs, the project can go out to bid in the spring. The hope is to start construction on the renovation and expansion in the summer. The project will renovate 70,000 square feet in the high school and add 35,000 square feet to the building.

It is planned to be a two-year project.

Other items on the board’s agenda last Wednesday included:

• An educational program by middle school art teacher Marci Cabrera.
• Building Leadership Team representatives sharing suggestions for consideration regarding future school year calendars.
• Approving an open enrollment application for a student enrolling into the Rock Valley School District.
• The resignations of Brittany Maassen as the district’s communication director; Sami Reinking as a fourth-grade teacher and middle school volleyball and softball coach; Jared Reinking as the middle school math interventionist; Emily Kruse as the middle school volleyball coach; Lori Roder in food service; and Levi Letsche as a high school instructional coach, the head football coach and assistant boys track coach.
• Offering contracts to Austin Kavanagh as an elementary physical education teacher for $44,900; Justin Kahl as an elementary English as a second language teacher for $51,500; Brandon Frick as a middle school math interventionist for $53,150; Terry Dolislager as an assistant baseball coach for $4,800; Shelley Hoogers as an executive assistant to the superintendent for $18 per hour for 40 hours per week; and Eli Ackles as an elementary special education paraeducator for $14.50 per hour for 6.75 hours per day.
• Approving Steve De Kok as volunteer speech coach.
• A board policy review second reading and a first reading for a revised board policy review.
• Accepting $222.76 from St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church in Sanborn for student lunch account assistance.
• Approving an Iowa Association for Educational Purchasing agreement.
• Setting a budget hearing and school calendar hearing for 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 10, in the high school library.
• Directing the advertisement for sale, approving electronic bidding procedures and approving an official statement for $10 million in general obligation bonds.
• Approving a school bus purchase of $130,499.
• Approving band uniform purchases in the amount of $41,162.10.
• Going into a closed session to discuss collective bargaining strategy.