After two years of construction — and more years of preparation and anticipation, the new $150 million Verona Area High School has transformed farm fields on the outskirts of Madison, Wis., into a modern campus.
But, The Wisconsin State Journal reports, the 3,000 truckloads of concrete, 1.3 million cubic yards of soil moved to grade, and 283,734 bricks that went into the end product won’t be fully appreciated by the school's 1,650 students — at least for now—because the Covid-19 pandemic has forced classes online.
The 592,000-square-foot building occupies a seven-acre footprint on a 162-acre parcel. Parking lots and new athletic facilities, such as turf football and soccer fields, baseball and softball diamonds, and tennis courts, surround the building.
The school was built with the goal of providing more physical space for all grade levels in the Verona district. It’s the product of a $181.3 million referendum voters approved more than three years ago.
“We hope that when you walk in there you’ll think, ‘I’m not sure I’ve seen a high school like this before,’” says Superintendent Dean Gorrell.
Perhaps the most striking space in the school runs the length of two football fields through the center of the building. A large atrium features three-story-high ceilings lined with windows at the top.
Throughout the ground floor and a second-floor balcony of the atrium, restaurant-style booths, high-top tables and conventional dining tables offer spots for 1,000 students to eat at one time, and nine lunch lines will provide a variety of food options. Three “bridges” on the upper floors divide up the expansive space.
In the classrooms, there are no rows of stale wooden desks. Instead, each room has brightly colored seating of three styles — regular chairs, barstool-height chairs and “comfy furniture,” such as sofas — to accommodate student preferences.
The new high school has a capacity of 2,200 students, and was constructed to support a future addition that would expand capacity to 2,500.
The former high school had a capacity of about 1,300 students.
MORE. Flyover video of Verona Area High School (J.H. Findorff & Son):
