ROCK SPRINGS — Sweetwater County School District No. 1 is at roughly 35% completion on the build plan for a new Rock Springs High School. 

Superintendent Joseph Libby said plans are expected to hit 65% on April 1, with 95% completion by the end of summer. The careers and technical education wind will be reduced in the plans as the Greene’s Energy Building the district purchased will house most of those offerings – though the state still requires high schools to have space dedicated to technical education on campus. Another change will lead to the current cafeteria at the satellite school becoming a commercial home economics space once the new high school cafeteria is built. Libby stresses the images the district has are draft images and are likely to change as the district and architect work on the project. 

“The potential of these changing two or three more times before we get down to like the 95 … could occur,” Libby said.

The plans for the physical education wing include two basketball courts with enough seating to support district and regional events. A wrestling room is now planned to separate the two basketball courts. The high school’s theater will be located near the main entrance. With the physical education wing also near the entrance. Libby said there will be a section of the building designed to take spectators to the physical education wing without requiring them to go through the main entrance and security, then walking through the building to go to a sporting event.

“You can come into the building through a vestibule that takes you through security then right into the physical education wing,” Libby said.

There will also be an external secured entrance into the theater.

Libby said part of the main parking lot already exists, with the current satellite high school building, which houses the RSHS ninth-grade center, at the center of what will make up the new high school. Plans call for two auxiliary fields, as well as a track and football field. Libby said the bleachers, concession stands, and locker rooms would come from enhancement funding through taxpayer bonds. Libby said discussions around the enhancements still need to occur, which include where a new pool could fit within the designs. A swimming pool and tennis courts are among enhancements the state will not pay for when building a new high school. Libby said a new pool isn’t part of the design because it would delay construction. Money available to pay for the pool would need to be part of the building budget.

“We need the high school built, so we’re just going to look at it as being a standalone, just like Kelly Walsh has theirs across the high school parking lot,” Libby said. 

Libby said a softball field is also under discussion as well.

Libby also said conversations with the City of Rock Springs about parking also need to take place. Chairman Cole Wright said the parking areas shown in the plans are required through city ordinance, Wright said Libby and representatives from the Rock Springs City Council have discussed options to reduce the parking spaces to allow for other uses. The city would have final say if the district could reduce parking lot sizes. 

Plans show a road extension from Stagecoach Boulevard would connect to the high school between the two auxiliary fields through a roundabout, with that extension also connecting to Summit Drive through the roundabout. Another connection at that roundabout will travel to Reagan Avenue and is expected to ease congestion between the satellite high school and the nearby Sage and Pilot Butte Elementary Schools. 

“Right now, if you’ve been out there, you have kids in those three buildings, there’s a lot of traffic,” Libby said. 

Libby said there will be more community meetings to discuss the high school in the future. The draft images can be viewed here.

“(We) definitely want to get some more community input as to how the rest of the facility is supposed to pan out, particularly with the enhancement aspects,” Libby said.