Building K-12 Schools for 70 Years – A CG Schmidt Moment in History

OUR HISTORY OF EDUCATION PROJECTS

For 70 years, CG Schmidt has been building, renovating and remodeling school projects in Wisconsin. Since our first education project for the Menomonee Falls School District in 1949, we’ve completed hundreds of projects for more than 40 public school districts, from door replacements to $70M+ new schools.

It all started with the construction of the Menomonee Falls High School in 1949 followed by various additions and remodels over the next few decades up until 2008. During that time, CG Schmidt added an indoor swimming pool, theater, cafeteria, library and music rooms.

Another long-time partner is Whitnall School District, but what started as Hales Corners School. CG Schmidt completed an addition to Hales Corners School (an Elementary School) in 1950. Eventually, Hales Corners School merged with Whitnall School District and in 2019, the CG Schmidt team was reunited with the elementary school, completing an addition and renovations, including modernizing the space.

While CG Schmidt worked on an addition at Menomonee Falls High School in 1958, we concurrently worked on other high school buildings like Whitnall High School (1958), Brown Deer High School (1957), Washington Union and Whitefish Bay High School (1956). At one point in the late 1950s, CG Schmidt was working at all five high schools at the same time. Each school project was reported to be about $1 million, which would calculate to about $8 million each in today’s dollars. In the 1950s, for a company and size of CG Schmidt, this was an incredibly busy time.

Moving out west – to Madison, that is. Although the first major project we landed in Madison was a higher education project, it’s worth highlighting. In 2008, CG Schmidt’s Madison office completed a $96 million campus expansion at the University of Madison. The brand-new Union South project, along with the hard work of our Madison team, paved the road for many more projects in the Madison area.

One of Madison’s anchor partners is Baraboo School District. In 2014, CG Schmidt assisted the District in passing a $10 million referendum, their first referendum in over 20 years. Since then, CG Schmidt’s completed over $80 million of work with the District. Additionally, the construction of new schools such as Lodi (2018), Barneveld (2019) and Wisconsin Dells High School (2020) are making a big impact in the region.

Although the physical construction and final project delivery are what can be seen, there’s also a tremendous amount of effort that goes into planning and implementing a public school referendum. From attending numerous meetings to producing material that will engage and inform the community, CG Schmidt is committed to providing a full-service team of experts. Much of the success of school projects moving forward is because of the extensive referendum services we offer.

Since 1949, we’ve completed hundreds of education projects in Wisconsin, helped inform thousands of community members via dozens of referenda, and improved the facilities and lives of tens of thousands of students. No firm in Wisconsin knows educational facility construction or works as hard to protect the interests of a District and community like CG Schmidt.

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