When students and staff return to South Jordan Middle School this fall, they'll notice significant updates to the 36-year-old building.

The art and ceramics rooms have been remodeled and relocated. New restrooms were added near the cafeteria—an area previously lacking facilities—and the faculty lounge was moved. Construction also is underway on a new fitness and weight room, along with a full kitchen renovation.

“We’re making improvements,” Dave Rostrom said, Jordan School District director of facility services. “The building is in good shape. We try to build our buildings to where they have a life expectancy of 60 to 80 years, with kind of a midlife renovation to bring them up.”

The $5.18 million project is being completed by MHTN Architects, who designed the original school, and Judd Construction.

A key part of the renovation involved installing a grease interceptor behind the building to meet sewer district regulations. That led to a complete overhaul of the kitchen. 

 “It's a full-blown kitchen renovation with new equipment, new hoods, new expanded serving lines,” he said.

Since the kitchen won’t be ready by the first day of school, meals will be prepared at nearby schools and brought in until mid-September.

“Students will eat in the cafeteria, but food won't be prepared at South Jordan Middle School, but at neighboring schools,” Rostrom said.

The kitchen expansion also allowed for other upgrades: in the art rooms — improved lighting, AV equipment, floor drains — and three single-occupancy restrooms near the cafeteria.

“It's always been a complaint in that design, that you have all those students eating lunch and there's really no restrooms in that vicinity. We did this design at Oquirrh Hills (Middle School) a few years ago, and it's worked out well,” Rostrom said.

Crews also are installing LED lights in the gym and cafeteria and adding acoustic material to reduce noise in the cafeteria. Seismic upgrades were made to bring the building up to current safety standards.

“We were constantly looking at doing seismic studies to make sure our buildings are safe in the event of an earthquake. South Jordan Middle was in good shape, but we had to do a little bit of work in there to help bring it up to today's standards,” he said.

Bingham High Adds Parking

In July, crews were working on expanding Bingham High’s parking lot, adding 146 more stalls. (Julie Slama/City Journals)

Nearby, Bingham High School is gaining 146 new parking stalls as part of a $1.06 million project. Light poles will be added in late fall.

“There's always a lot of students parking on the road, so our goal is to get a lot of those cars off 2200 West. We took out some grass areas that aren't used for student activities or sports and turned them into parking lots,” Rostrom said. “We’ll also install a sidewalk from 2200 West into the north parking lot. It'll be a safer walking route for our students who are walking to school from that direction.”