Throughout the 2024-25 school year, a group of parents, staff, and community members came together to serve on a UCSD Facilities Master Planning Committee. Committee members participated in four workshops led by DLR Group in order to review existing facilities, understand current and future challenges, and outline facility planning priorities. Priorities include relocating the softball field (in accordance with the City of Urbandale’s Master Plan for Lions Park), construction of a District Administration Office and Maintenance Facility, construction of a high school Career and Technical Education building, and refurbishing the UMS football track and construction of a track around the field. Learn more about facility planning priorities by viewing this article: https://construction.urbandaleschools.com/2025/06/ucsd-facilities-update-master-planning/
The UCSD Facilities Master Planning Committee identified the following priorities (see link below). Please know, as of June 2025, no official decisions have been made as the District is still in the initial information-gathering stage in order to understand the viability of these potential projects and costs associated. The District will be discussing financials at an upcoming School Board Meeting (possibly in August). As the facility planning process continues, the District will be conducting numerous community meetings in order to share various scenarios and request stakeholder feedback regarding preferences for each scenario. Priorities can be found here: https://construction.urbandaleschools.com/2025/06/ucsd-facilities-update-master-planning/
The District is currently reviewing finances to determine what portion of the projects could utilize existing funds versus what would require a Bond Referendum. For projects requiring a Bond Referendum, a tentative date for the referendum would be November 2027.
The Jensen property was considered for the softball field project, but the size of the property is not ideal for a standard softball field, concessions, restrooms, and parking. The Jensen property may still be an option for the location of the CTE project.
The Rolling Green property is being considered for the construction of the District Administration Office and Maintenance Facility.
The vacant property was taken into consideration for these projects, but given the distance of the vacant property from the majority of UCSD schools, the Committee believed it was of greater importance for the new facilities to be centrally located within the District in order to provide greater access for all District stakeholders.
Moving the softball field out of Lions Park to another District-owned location is in accordance with the City of Urbandale’s Master Plan for Lions Park (link below; review slide 13 Extended Phasing Plan). The District is taking proactive steps to secure a new location for the softball field given the City’s plans to remove the softball field and replace it with new enclosed shelters with civic plaza space and open lawn. Link to the City of Urbandale’s Master Plan for Lions Park: https://www.urbandale.org/DocumentCenter/View/13565/Lions-Park-Master-Plan
At this point, the District is still in the initial information-gathering stage. We would anticipate that Urbandale High School students attending Metro West would have the opportunity to attend classes in the proposed CTE building. Students attending Metro West from neighboring districts would most likely attend CTE classes in their home districts.
While there are several factors taken into consideration when determining the District’s ability to accept an open-enrolled student, see Board Policy 626 (link below), the primary factor related to facilities is space. There must be space within the classroom, grade level, and program as once a student is approved for open enrollment, that approval continues until the student graduates. While the CTE building would support a variety of new classes, the District would still need to ensure there was sufficient space within grade levels and programs. Thus, the District could only increase open enrollment capacity if there was sufficient space across classrooms, grade levels, and programs (not just additional classroom space in the CTE building). Link to Board Policy 626: http://bit.ly/3IQJgu4
Over the past several years, the District has inquired about the possibility of using the Senior Center property. This was also an idea that the Facilities Master Planning Committee inquired about during the planning process throughout the 2024-25 school year. Unfortunately, the City of Urbandale shared they are unable to support this request.
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