Brookfield Academy's $12.5 mil high school

I recently visited Brookfield Academy to look at their plans.
They are very excited that their new $12.5 million dollar High School is closer to becoming a reality.

















Take a look at their plans and CLICK on the Patriot's Hall picture. Then ask yourself if Elmbrook is doing the best they can with your money?

Interestingly, their square footage, about 88,460 square feet, is nearly the same as our athletics related new construction, 83,146 square feet.

Their cost / square foot is around $141. Our cost / new square foot ratio is about $166.

Their plan includes a 2 station gym, 24 classrooms, a library, weight room, plus the usual cafeteria and administrative areas.

Their classrooms and gyms are a little smaller than ours, but I hope you can see that certainly Elmbrook could have made a similar, smaller addition at East and Central (since the schools already have cafeterias, libraries, administrative areas, etc). Using the new addition for those expensive areas to remodel like science, language, computer labs, would save expensive upgrades to the existing school building.

If I remember correctly, if we kept below the 25% ratio of new to old, then, many of the building code standards remain grandfathered and then we can deal with them as able.

We could have ended up with a more reasonable referendum dollar amount--say, $31mil total? That would give you $12.5 mil at each school for the addition plus $3mil at each school for the most necessary maintenance improvements.
Brookfield Academy is saving up the money beforehand. I like that. (Yes, I am a Dave Ramsey/Suzie Orman in a sub-prime world.)

Brookfield Academy is also very resourceful. This building once was a bowling alley!

ACADEMICS, NOT AIR CONDITIONING AND ATHLETICS: VOTE NO

Reader comment: Another school to make a comparison is the Brand New Lake Country Lutheran High School in Hartland that is being built and due to be completed in spring 2009. It is 160,000 square feet with football and soccer fields, parking lots, etc. The school is for 800 students. All this for 30 million dollars!

Links: Betterbrookfield, Vicki Mckenna
Blogs: Practically Speaking, Fairlyconservative