While the $34 million bond- funded improvements to North High School should be complete this year, juniors and seniors will move back into the original 1911 building Tuesday.
“It’s like a privilege, honestly,” said senior Rafael Magallanes, 18. “We’re the class that has seen the most change happen to the school.”
The renovation is a key project in the $454 million bond that voters approved in 2008 — the largest school-construction bond in Colorado history. It included repairs to other schools and construction of a new campus in Green Valley Ranch.
Denver Public Schools officials said they saved about $3 million on the North High renovations, enabling them to install an artificial-turf field, replace some windows in a newer building and renovate a 1913 building that had been slated to be mothballed.
Only four active schools in DPS are in buildings older than North High: Garden Place, Lincoln, Smedley and Park Hill.
North’s freshmen have studied at Smedley during the construction.
“It’ll be really nice to have freshmen back on the campus again,” said Ames Prather, a 12th-grade English teacher, as he packed up his classroom before spring break.
At Smedley, he said, “they don’t really get an idea of what our culture is like.”
This week, Prather and his students will move from an attached building constructed in 1983 into one of 13 renovated classrooms on the completed third floor of the 1911 building.
The 150,000-square-foot building has 56 classrooms, and the rest will be occupied next school year. A dedication ceremony is planned for July 29.
DPS senior project manager Gary Beutler said that a century ago, crews built the school using just 10 sheets of plans. The renovations involved about 300 sheets.
As the renovation progressed, crews uncovered historic details in more places than they expected and have been working to restore them.
“We didn’t know how great it was until we started the renovation process,” Beutler said.
For instance, crews have been restoring original mosaic tiles in the hallways of the upper three floors at the school, rather than replacing them with carpet. Some of the tiles are as small as a half- inch wide.
Workers also have been restoring the original metalwork in doorways and stairwells at the school. Beutler said the metalwork had been covered with about 20 coats of paint, so crews sandblasted and restored it to reveal the original detail.
Senior Marluve Veltze, 18, said she’s looking forward to taking classes in the 1911 building before she graduates.
“It’s nice to have the feeling of what the new building is going to look like, since we’re not going to be in the new building next year,” she said.
Matthew Rodriguez: 303-954-2409 or mrodriguez@yourhub.com
