New Talon Community Fitness Center Ready for Operations – Door County Pulse

With the new Talon Community Fitness Center set to open later this school year, rainy days and winter weather won’t mean long stretches of inactivity for Southern Door County School District students.

“I can imagine December, January, February, March, and being in a heated, huge, indoor facility with turf,” said Southern Door County School District Superintendent Kevin Krutzik. “I mean, what an option that is. It’s phenomenal.”

The indoor turf field is 40 by 60 yards—one-third the length of a football field and a little more than the width of an entire football field. The lawn is marked with yard lines, a baseball field and a softball field with a batting cage on one side and running lanes on the other. In addition to the turf field, the fitness center also has a full exercise room.

But Krutzik emphasized that the center could be used for more than just physical forms of education. Each classroom could use the space for extracurricular activities. Krutzik imagines, for example, science classes using the high ceilings to conduct experiments.

The completion of the 27,000-square-foot indoor, heated sports facility marks the end of the district’s referendum project.

Voters approved a $14.9 million capital referendum in November 2022 that funded the final two years of construction. That construction also rebuilt the school’s art rooms, Family and Consumer Education (FACE) classrooms, the sewer system and district offices.

“We’re very fortunate to have what we have,” said Dan Viste, the district’s director of maintenance and transportation.

From tours of the Krutzik and Viste resorts so far, it appears that they have been met with a positive reception from the community.

“People are so impressed with what we have to offer at Southern Door,” Viste said.

As its name suggests, the Talon Community Fitness Center will not be just for students. The center will be open to the public outside of school hours — early mornings, evenings, and weekends. Community members will be able to sign up through the school and pay a membership fee for access. School board members will discuss the details of the program at their Sept. 16 meeting.

“It will be a wonderful facility that will be used not only by our students but will also be open to the general public,” Krutzik said.

The Southern Door County School District will hold a grand opening of the Talon Community Fitness Center on Friday, September 20 from 4 to 6:30 p.m. prior to its annual Homecoming festivities. Krutzik said community members can contact the Southern Door County School District office – 920.825.7311 – for a personalized “Come and Check Out” tour of the new facility.

Other construction projects related to the referendum

The school’s new, stand-alone greenhouse is also ready for use in the upcoming school year as part of the agriscience program. Although the greenhouse was part of the original referendum plan, it was temporarily shelved due to increased material costs and the cost of replacing the septic system during the first phase of construction, according to an Aug. 8 press release.

But in March of this year, the board announced it would use funds from the project’s emergency budget – money set aside for unforeseen expenses – to finance construction of the greenhouse.

In the summer of 2023, the first phase of the redevelopment occurred. At that point, the old district offices in a separate building were demolished and the school’s old fitness center, located at the front of the school, became the new district offices. The parking lot was also expanded.

The art rooms still occupy the same space in the school, but the central storage area has been removed to make each room larger. Each room has also been fitted with new banks of sinks.

Consumer education classrooms were modernized and included a new commercial kitchen.

Students could use the facilities through the 2023-24 school year. To stay on schedule, the school board held off on replacing the floors in the art and consumer education classrooms until Phase 2, which began next summer.

“All the rooms look fantastic, it’s definitely an improvement over the old days,” Viste said.

Many of the rebuilt classrooms were built in the 1960s and 1970s.

In addition to the more visible changes to classrooms and offices, the first phase of construction also completed much of the underground work. Previously, the school operated on two separate sewer systems built in the 1980s—one for the elementary school and one for the secondary schools.

While a new sewer system was not originally part of the plan, its construction was recommended due to its age and location.