The Neenan Company completed a variety of additional spaces for the Yuma School District to offer high school students more places for learning and growth in Yuma, Colorado.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, students in rural areas tend to have less educational attainment than their counterparts in larger cities. Yuma is committed to ensuring its school district is an outlier and model of what is possible for rural schools when you invest in the educational needs not just of today, but well into the future.

The Neenan Company, a fully integrated design-build firm based in Colorado, partnered with Yuma School District on a district-wide renovation and expansion project to equip the school to meet the educational opportunities of the future. The project touched every inch of Yuma School District, achieving a goal to expand program offerings for Yuma’s high school students, to pave the way for robust college and career opportunities ahead. The renovated campus features:

• A state-of-the-art agricultural science workspace, known as the ag shop, with 5,000 SF
  of space for woodworking and steel welding.
• Athletics practice space, PE gymnasium and weight room.
• Several highly specialized spaces that feature top-notch technology, including the
  robotics club space and creation of a new wing for STEM and CTE programs.
• Adaptable spaces that are ready to accommodate future programming for the district.
• Upgrades to the face of the building that increased safety and security measures.
• Reconfiguration of all classrooms including upgrades to HVAC and electrical systems.
• Expanded space with a focused design on integrating departments for easy
  collaboration across programs.
• Increased natural lighting for all classrooms.
• Maintenance of the historic brickwork throughout all renovations.

The Neenan Company and Yuma School District embarked on the transformation in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting significant challenges in labor and material shortages. Students needed to still be able to utilize this building during construction, which added layers of complexity for Neenan to phase construction in a way that adhered to social distancing and caused minimal interruption to student learning. Utilizing the design-build model during this time was instrumental to ensuring the project was completed on time and within budget. Neenan also secured state funding for the district through their work on the master plan and followed the Collaborative for High Performance Schools Certification Standards.

Design: The Neenan Company
Photography: LaCasse Photography