D49 to Add Middle School and Expand BRES

  • School District 49 is pleased to announce two major construction projects will create new and needed learning space in the fastest growing school district in the state of Colorado. A new middle school and a sixth-grade addition to Bennett Ranch Elementary School, both designed and built by Colorado-based businesses, are preliminarily scheduled to welcome students in the near future.  

    D49 new middle front view rendering

    MS23-226 (the project name for the new middle school) is planned for the Sand Creek Zone and will find a home on Barnes Rd., about a mile east of Marksheffel Blvd. Nunn Construction will build the 130,000 square foot middle school in a neighborhood currently in development by Nor’wood Homes. MS23-226 will serve 900 D49 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students.  The board of education approved naming the new school, Elevation Middle School. 

    Simultaneously, the Falcon Zone’s Firebird Nation Campus will make use of existing space when builder GH Phipps begins work on an addition to the existing Bennett Ranch Elementary School. The new wing will provide nearly 54,000 square feet of learning space for sixth grade students, relieving pressure at nearby Falcon Middle School. 

    D49 will renew its partnership with Wember Inc. to serve as owner’s representative for both projects, which have a combined budget of $85 million. Wember Inc. worked closely with D49 on previous projects, including the construction of Bennett Ranch, Inspiration View Elementary Schools and all major additions to the district’s three main high schools. 

    All projects, including Elevation Middle School and the BRES expansion, are funded by the 2016 voter-approved 3B Mill Levy Override, which created a funding model to support the construction of new schools in D49 for years to come. For more information on the project funding, go to the Building Our Future Community page. 

    Work on the BRES addition began when crews broke ground in February of 2022. The scheduled completion is for the summer of 2023. 

    In the meantime, the D49 planning department will finalize the Elevation Middle School feeder pattern plans, identifying which D49 schools will send students to the brand new campus. D49 will also incorporate community feedback into the selection process for school name, colors, and mascot. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring/summer 2022. 

    Elementary School Boundary Shifts

    Adding a new school in the near future requires intentional planning today, including identifying which schools will feed into it. To stay ahead of our growing neighborhoods, and to best meet the needs of our current and future families, we will begin some calculated modifications to some of our elementary school boundaries. These adjustments will allow D49 to maximize our campus capacity and support enrollment of the new middle school.

BRES Expansion

BRES Renderings

New Middle School

Middle School Renderings

Approximate Location

PDF Map of Site

March 2022 Update

D49 Chief Operations Officer Pedro Almeida gave an update on the timeline of school and zone boundary shifts to the Board of Education.

February 2022 Update

Bruce Brown, facility project manager, provided a facilities update to the Board of Education in February 2022.

November 2022 Update

Former planning manager gave a short update on the middle school and middle school addition to the Board of Education, in November 2021.

D49 Building Capacity for MS

D49 Chief Operations Officer Pedro Almeida presented the topic of adding a middle school to the D49 portfolio of schools at the board of education meeting on Thursday, June 10, 2021.

PDF Presentation: D49 Building Capacity for Middle School Education

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