News Schools

Construction Starts Soon on Norterra School

July 23, 2019July 23, 2019 Karen Goveia

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Photo Illustration by Erin Lundeen, In&Out Publications

Construction on a new Norterra-area school could begin as soon as late August, if designs are approved by the City of Phoenix in the coming weeks.

Deer Valley Unified School District is in the process of finalizing the design of the K-8 school on a 12-acre site within USAA’s Union Park at Norterra neighborhood near 19th Avenue and Happy Valley Road, said DVUSD Deputy Supt. Jim Migliorino. Expected to take 11 months to build, the school’s construction would need to begin soon to open for the start of the 2020-21 school year.

The school will have a brand new design which has been adapted to fit the site, as has been the case with most of the existing DVUSD schools, Migliorino said. At 83,500 square feet, the building will be about the same size as others, but the configuration will be different. The design calls for an administration building, a multipurpose building and two connected two-story classroom buildings. Capacity is planned for 917 students.

The district is considering offering an optional partial-immersion Spanish-English program at the new school.

Construction will be funded by bonds approved by voters in 2013 [see the January decision to build the school]. The site was acquired in a land-swap with USAA, in which DVUSD gave the developer a 14-acre site it had no intention of developing at 43rd Avenue and Alameda Road, in exchange for the parcel within the development which, at buildout, will consist of 1,100 single-family homes and 1,100 multi-family units. The new school aims to avoid overcrowding at nearby Norterra and Sonoran Foothills schools.

Karen Goveia

NoPho resident Karen Goveia joined In&Out Publications in 2009 and is managing editor. Goveia is a Chicagoland native with two decades of experience in the news industry, starting as a reporter for a chain of weekly papers serving Chicago’s suburbs and later serving as managing editor within the chain.