Members of the Dowagiac Union Schools Board of Education got their first look at initial plans for an updated high school Monday night.

Lead project architect Scott Winchester, with 7GenAE, presented preliminary design work and renderings for the upcoming high school renovation project during the board’s meeting at Dowagiac City Hall. The series of computer-generated graphics showed the firm’s current plans to overhaul the academic, administrative and kitchen facilities of the school, as well gave the board its first glimpse of the new competition gym addition to the building.

The plans were created following several months of “visioning” meetings between the architect and high school administrators, staff, students and others in the community, intended to come up with a list of features and priorities for the design of the high school renovation. Following the conclusion of these sessions in the spring, Winchester took the feedback generated from the sit-downs to create the designs presented Monday.

The high school renovation project, along with planned overhauls to the district’s four elementary buildings and football field, will be paid for using funds from the $37 million pair of bond measures passed by Dowagiac voters in November.

The new gymnasium, which will be built on the west end of the high school, will seat up to 1,200 people, with a foyer that can hold about 400 people. The building will also feature four team rooms for the home and visiting teams, two for men’s athletic teams on one side of the structure and two for women’s teams on the other, Winchester said.

In line with the focus on increased building security, visitors for games and competitions at the new gym will be required to enter from a secure entrance on the north end of the structure, the architect said.

“Nobody enters from the west side of the building, at all,” Winchester said.

The planned redesign of the front offices follow that same philosophy of security. Similar to Dowagiac Middle School, the plans call for a vestibule that visitors must enter before they are admitted into the building, with a staff member sitting only a few feet away at a desk right near the entrance letting people in and out of the structure.

One of the key new features of the academic wings of the building will be the learning commons, a pair of concentrated learning areas where students can go to study or use technology, Winchester said.

“These actually double as the old computer labs, which were not used because they were located around the building,” he said.

The plans also call for dramatic changes to the school cafeteria in order to make it space for learning as well as dining. Among the proposed changes is the removal of the trophy case in order to install new, taller seating tables, as well as installing an adjustable ceiling that can be lowered to create a more “intimate” atmosphere for assemblies, Winchester said.

With the preliminary design work finished, Winchester and Michael Kounelis, construction consultant with the project, will continue to revise the schematics, performing several budget checks throughout the process to keep costs in line with initial estimates, Kounelis said. From there, the plans will be finalized and ready to go to market for bidding on construction by around November, with work estimated to begin in spring.

“That historically has been a very good time for bids,” Kounelis said. “It also allows contractors to procure and stage work without having to start immediately.”