Cooper Elementary Construction Resumes After April Fire

Cooper Elementary and Superior High School Renovations Expected to be Complete by 2019 School Year

SUPERIOR, Wis. – The Superior School District is starting the academic year with some major construction projects, including at Cooper Elementary.

The new school was supposed to open this fall but a fire and explosion delayed that by a year.

In April, Cooper Elementary School was ninety percent done.

The fire destroyed much of the progress and crews have been working ever since to clean up the damage and start construction again.

“Just to see what the extent of the damage was, it was really disheartening for the team, but we were able to really quickly recover,” said project manager Paul Noll.

In the four and a half months since the devastating fire, the inside of the new Cooper Elementary was completely gutted.

“A lot of tearing out and a lot of demolition had to occur,” said Noll. “We had to gut almost the entire interior of the building and anything that was a soft surface, and you can envision we had fully finished classrooms had to be removed.”

According to Noll, rebuilding the school will cost about $16 million. That money will be covered by the school district’s insurance policy.

“The insurance company and the industrial hygienist and the restoration contractor have gone to tremendous lengths to make sure that this is going to be an incredibly perfectly safe and healthy building,” said Noll.

Because of the setback, Superior School District won’t open their new school until August 2019, a year after they originally planned.

“It really hasn’t set us back,” said Superintendent Amy Starzecki. “The learning’s still going to happen. We were in the transition phase of making the move over to the new Cooper building but we’re in a position where we’re going to be able to keep running business as usual at Cooper and just delay the timeline one year.”

As reconstruction of the interior begins, crews say their second attempt may be even better than the original.

“It’s not an opportunity you encounter almost ever to be able to do the same project twice but I think we’ve got all the kinks worked out in the first go around, any of the minor glitches that we might have had,” said Noll. “Now it’s basically smooth sailing for the next couple months.”

Administrators and teachers are excited to get an all-new school with technology advances, collaborative spaces, and room for community events.

“We were excited about transitioning into the building last year and involving the community with that,” said Cooper Elementary Principal Aaron Lieberz. “That’s just delayed one year is all so now we’ll do it again in the spring of 2019.”

The new building is expected to be complete in May of next year.

The old Cooper Elementary is scheduled to be torn down next summer.

Meanwhile, renovations at Superior High School are also expected to be completed by the 2019 school year.

The front entrance and main office are scheduled to be done late this fall.

Gym work will take place in the winter and flooring will be installed next summer.

Construction will be going on all year, but it’s expected to happen away from students while learning is going on.