Funding for the future Saguaro Innovation Center received the green light on May 19 as the Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board unanimously approved the project’s next step.
You must be a member to read this story.
Join our family of readers for as little as $5 per month and support local, unbiased journalism.
Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Funding for the future Saguaro Innovation Center received the green light on May 19 as the Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board unanimously approved the project’s next step.
Dennis Roehler, SUSD director of building services, asked the Governing Board for a bit more than $1.46 million to McCarthy Building Companies while also presenting a brief timeline. The funding breakdown includes about $1.42 million from the 2016 voter-approved bond and about $42,000 in adjacent ways funds.
“We’re taking an unsightly place on Saguaro’s campus and making it into an innovation center, which fits with the Math and Science Academy as well as their very outstanding robotics program and this is the prototype for what hopefully will happen across the district at other high schools as well,” Superintendent Dr. John Kriekard said during the meeting.
“It is the modern world of students being able to do hands-on problem solving in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”
Mr. Roehler has worked with Saguaro students on design to convert the existing outdoor covered dining area, colloquially known as The Cage, into an enclosed innovation center. The center will be next to the school’s media center on the north end of the campus.
The robotics team, Club RUSH, business partners and other student groups would be the primary users of the facility.
With the approval, Mr. Roehler anticipates a quick start as demolition will begin shortly. He said the plans and permit requests are into the city with the hope the district will have approval in the coming weeks.
This sets expectations of having the old structure gone, the site graded and the foundation in place with construction beginning on the rest of building by the end of the summer. Project completion will likely be the end of the fall, Mr. Roehler said.
Saguaro is home to the Math and Science Academy, which provides a more rigorous and focused curriculum in STEM-based learning. Governing Board Vice President Patty Beckman said the program was set to welcome its biggest group yet. She complimented Mr. Roehler for helping plan the facility to be mindful of future growths in the program and at Saguaro.
“I think that’s fantastic and the kids are incredibly excited as well as the teachers over there,” she said.
By 
