An $18.3 million construction project will bring elementary school students in the Maquoketa (Iowa) district together on a single campus.
The Telegraph-Herald reports that crews are set to start foundation work this week at Briggs Elementary School. The construction will expand Briggs so it can accommodate the grade levels that now attend the district’s Cardinal Elementary School: prekindergarten through second grade. Briggs already is home to third- and fourth-grade students.
Once the expansion at Briggs is completed, Cardinal will close.
“We’re just so excited to be at this point,” Superintendent Tara Notz said. “Everyone is really looking forward to having a high-quality facility that really supports high-quality learning environments as well as safe learning environments.”
Cardinal is an “open-concept” building with few walls. Classrooms have been created using temporary drywall, filing cabinets and curtains, which school administrators have said poses problems in terms of safety, noise and energy efficiency.
At Briggs, crews will construct a new wing on the south and west sides of the building, which will house preschool, kindergarten and first-grade students, as well as a wrap-around day care area.
The district plans to remodel classroom learning spaces in the existing building to serve second-, third- and fourth-graders. It will also construct a second, competition-sized gym; Briggs’ existing gym now doubles as the lunchroom.
“Our current middle school is not a competition-sized gym, and we aren’t able to really change that due to the historic nature of the middle school and the cost, so we’ll be using the new gym at the elementary for a lot of middle school activities and then also hoping to open it up to the community for events,” Notz said.
The project should be substantially completed by spring 2027, with final items finished up that summer so students can move into new spaces for the 2027-28 school year.
Notz said the district then will likely sell the Cardinal building.
