The Wisconsin Heights School District needed to replace two aging elementary school facilities located in communities on opposite sides of the district. The solution was to build an 80,000-sf elementary school addition to the existing high school and middle school facilities to create a single educational campus within the district.
In partnership with Performance Services, Inc., KL Engineering provided traffic analysis, field topographic surveying, site and stormwater management design, construction oversight, and construction staking of site infrastructure including the layout of the building foundation and columns for the project.
Traffic analysis was required by WisDOT to evaluate the functionality of the student drop-off area. The main site access from USH 12 is an important connecting highway with a known crash history. Given that the school expansion would substantially increase the student population, developing a plan to accommodate increased student drop-offs without negatively impacting USH 12 was vital. KL Engineering worked with the school district to develop mitigation measures to address concerns about the drop-off area. This included staggering school starts for different grades, school bus coordination, lengthening drop-off lane lengths, and informational campaigns encouraging the use of alternate access points. The school opened and no known impacts have occurred on USH 12.
The design and permitting were completed within an extremely tight timeframe of less than 6 months. To help speed up the field surveying process and to provide the precise images used to produce the site plans for the project, the KL team utilized its aerial drone technology. Additionally, KL’s ability to perform all work efficiently in-house helped compact the deadlines to be met.
