Hiawatha Academy, Northrop Campus

This $11M, 90,000 sf educational campus has re-invigorated a previously vacant lot and building. Charged with both a renovation and a significant addition, U+B worked rigorously with the City of Minneapolis to realize a complex variance process while still meeting an aggressive construction schedule.

The existing building, outdated and neglected, required building systems and aesthetic upgrades. In addition to the renovation, our client wanted an aesthetically seamless addition to the existing traditional school building to expand the classroom capacity. U+B developed a successful programming and building systems upgrade solution within existing building constraints and a new contemporary building design complementary to the existing traditional aesthetics of the campus.

We worked on the site plan to retain as much green space as possible while providing a more sensible traffic flow pattern for pick-up and drop-off of students each day. The redesigned site improved the flow and created a more welcoming entry for students, staff and visitors.
To accommodate the schools long range plans, U+B designed a high school regulation gym, corridors with student lockers as well as high school level science classrooms into a middle school facility. These decisions allowed the Phase 2 middle school to temporarily accommodate a high school for the next three years while Hiawatha Academies secured a new site for the high school. U+B is currently working through the predesign of the new facility, connected to the historically significant Canada Dry bottling plant in Minneapolis.