The northwest corner of the Highland School property is staked and netted to begin construction on the new Crookston Public Schools bus garage that was approved in the November 2019 referendum election. Voters overwhelmingly passed the bus garage referendum and the project is about to become a reality.
Crookston Superintendent Jeremy Olson said the district and contractor are waiting for the final approval from the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry before breaking ground this week. “We’ve got things ready to go, we are just waiting on the Department of Labor and Industry to start breaking ground,” said Olson. “We have to get formal permission from them. We have all the paperwork in, the I’s dotted and T’s crossed, just waiting for the statement from them that you may break ground. We’re anticipating that this week and so, we continue to get ready and are kind of excited to see the ground move.”
Construction will take about seven months and the ability to move in is anticipated around Christmas. “We have a whole series of events, getting the steel coming, but without boring the listeners we’re looking at sometime around Christmas,’ said Olson. “I’m always a little tentative because anytime you start a construction project, you’re not sure what will happen. But we are anticipating under the current construction schedule it to be our Christmas present next year.”
Olson said the building would likely be a “Pirate” blue with white doors. “We’ve sent (the colors) out to our school board,” said Olson. “We’ve also put some recommended colors out to our bus garage committee to get their thoughts on it. We’re currently looking a kind of a Pirate blue, the garage doors will be white, and then, we’re still looking at some trim work. We want to get some feedback because we want it to be something the community of Crookston is proud of.”
