More than 200 teachers, parents and dignitaries attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Alta View Elementary under a stellar blue sky Tuesday, April 19 – but the real VIPs of the event were Alta View’s many students who came to celebrate the start of work on their new building.

“This is an incredibly exciting time,” Alta View Principal Karen Medlin told the crowd. “We’re going to be so proud of this new addition to the Canyons District community, and we promise you that it will be a place of learning, a place of knowledge, a place of true human power.”

Senate President Wayne Niederhauser; Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper; members of the White City Township Community Council Kay Dickerson, Paulina Flint and Linda Price; Canyons Board of Education President Sherril Taylor and members Steve Wrigley, Nancy Tingey, Amber Shill; District administrators, school administrators, teachers and parents and neighbors all attended the celebration of beginning construction on the long-awaited building.
According to plans, the new Alta View will be built east of the existing school. Children will attend class in the old facility while the new one is being constructed.

Features of the new Alta View include a security vestibule that will require all visitors to be seen by school staff before entering the building. Plans also call for a large commons area filled with natural light and a grand staircase leading to the second-floor classrooms, the media center, an activity room and a computer lab. On the main floor, classrooms will be flanked by a multipurpose room and the kitchen and cafeteria. 

In addition, state-of-the-art mechanical and electrical systems, including voice-amplification equipment for teachers, will be used in learning spaces throughout the building.

The project is being completed thanks to a $250 million, tax-rate-neutral bond approved by voters in 2010. In the past six years, the District has been able to successfully complete a healthy spate of new-school and renovation projects, including seismic retrofitting at Sandy Elementary, the new Midvale Elementary, Corner Canyon High, a renovation of Albion Middle, the new Butler Middle, the new Draper Park Middle, additions at Brighton and Hillcrest high schools, and the new Mount Jordan Middle. 

Work on the projects promised to the CSD community at the time of the bond’s passage will continue for the next several years.  A new Butler Elementary will open this fall, crews are hard at work on a new Midvale Middle and the design process is underway for a remodel of Indian Hills. The Board of Education on Tuesday, April 12 approved a contract with FFKR to work on the remodel of the Sandy middle school – the final project expected to be completed with funds from the 2010 bond measure.