Performance center, high school construction progressing

The Cedar Falls Community School District is making progress to build a Scheels Tiger Performance Center multi-purpose indoor facility. According to Activity Director Troy Becker, there won’t be any sports housed in the building. “It will be used for training, practicing, preparing for games, but it’s not actually designed for games and competitions.”

The Scheels Tiger Performance Center is expected to be finished in the spring of 2025, but the district would like to get the walls up by the fall of 2024. 

This building is going to be expensive, but Becker said, “We already have $4 million and our first goal is $5 million. The entire building, we’re estimating, will cost about $8 million.” 

The district couldn’t make this happen without the generous donors. Martin Brothers donated $750,000 and Scheels donated $1 million. In thanks, the district has named this building the Scheels Tiger Performance Center.

 The online drawing of the center shows it will have hangout spots where students can do their homework or relax after exercising. This building will be located right next to the existing high school. 

According to Becker, the only setbacks so far have been fundraising; they’ve yet to meet their first goal of $5 million. Becker said, “We have one chance to do this right. This is our opportunity. I know it’s a lot of money, but us doing this now is going to impact students 50 years from now.”

In addition to the Scheels Tiger Performance Center, the district will be building a brand new high school. This brand new building will be located just west of the UNI Dome. According to Becker, the new high school is going to be a lot bigger, with more collaborative spaces. “It’s built for new learning. It has the flexibility to house additional students. It won’t be as tight as the current high school, and it will have air conditioning and better climate control. Everything will be updated.”

Funding for this new school is a bit different than the Scheels Tiger Performance Center. Becker said that this building is “funded through the bond vote from the community and taxpayer dollars.” Becker also said that the school district is picking up a portion of what needs to be paid to get the job done. 

Becker said that it will be finished by the fall of 2024 and the Class of 2025 will be the first graduating class.

According to Becker, there haven’t been many setbacks yet. The only thing Becker said was that the “cost of materials went up significantly.”

A few years back, students took an interest survey of things that they did or didn’t want to see in the new high school. While the results of that survey weren’t available to see, Becker assured that the “school is built around the student’s input from the survey.”

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