Case Study: How Michel Family Aquatic Center Reaped the Rewards of Our Integrated Design Services Approach

The Project

Saint Thomas Academy (STA) is an esteemed private, Catholic, military school for boys in grades 6 – 12 with a legacy 130 years in the making. Through its staff, educational programming and campus, the Mendota Heights, Minnesota, school is committed to providing transformational academic, athletic and life experiences.

Across the road from STA is Visitation School (VIS), which for more than 150 years has provided private Catholic schooling for boys and girls in pre-K through grade five and for girls only in middle and high school. Like, STA, VIS is regaled for its commitment to preparing students for their life beyond high school.

With aligned visions and missions, the school communities benefit from select shared facilities and programs. For example, students from both schools participate in a combined fine arts program called VISTA that uses VIS’s theater facilities. The tennis teams share VIS’s courts. The hockey teams share STA’s ice arena, and the swim teams share STA’s pool.

Since 2013, we’ve proudly supported both schools with design-build services, implementing their respective master plans and engaging in more than 12 projects across the two campuses. Most recently, we’re providing construction management services that includes demolition of the original 1965 indoor pool facility on STA’s campus as well as construction of the new 17,700-square-foot Michel Family Aquatic Center.

The Challenge

As private institutions, STA and VIS rely on fundraising to underwrite their capital improvement projects, which means project prioritization is key. Though part of STA’s master campus plan, a new pool was historically viewed as a “nice to have,” never rising to the level of “need to have.”

That all changed in the spring of 2023, just months before Brian Ragatz joined Saint Thomas Academy as president. The STA swim team won its 25th section championship and VIS its 10th straight state championship, buoying not only the desire but the need for a modern pool facility.

According to Ragatz, “Get it done” was the rallying cry echoing off the cracking and broken tiles of the old pool deck, and he heard it loud and clear. “STA takes great pride in providing our school community with best-in-class experiences, and there was no denying that our pool facility was underperforming both operationally and functionally,” he said. “We had reached that point where we could either proactively create the timeline or the facility would do it for us.”

Jennifer Bigelow, Visitation’s Head of School, added, “Like Saint Thomas, VIS has a storied swim and dive program. To fully support these student-athletes, to help them achieve their potential, it’s our responsibility to give them access to state-of-the-art facilities. That includes classrooms as well as athletic facilities.”

The Solution

The schools hired Montclair, New Jersey-based Fabiano Designs, which is recognized for its work on a range of athletic facilities, to design the new aquatic facility. They engaged us to bring that design to fruition both on time and on budget.

We’re a vertically integrated team with a depth of experience and expertise that includes both design and construction, which enabled us to collaborate with Fabiano early in the project to understand their design recommendations, direction and decisions. We also held listening sessions with STA and VIS to prioritize our collaboration of the design, constructability and budget.

With all of this insight and perspective, we developed a plan, identified potential variables and risks, and created a transparent contract structure with a guaranteed maximum price, assuring the schools that we would deliver a beautifully designed state-of-the-art aquatic facility that met their priorities, their budget and their timeline.

“As with any project, we leaned into our decades of design-build expertise. In this instance, we also leveraged our experience on dozens of school construction projects and our familiarity with the schools,” said George Parrino, Construction Project Executive with Opus. “When preparing for a race, swimmers are told to trust their training. Well, the same can be said of construction. At the end of the day, we trusted our training, we collaborated with Fabiano and we’re delivering a winning facility to STA and VIS.”

The Result

The Michel Family Aquatic Center will ensure STA and VIS will be all the more equipped to provide life-changing experiences that prepare students for success in academics, athletics and life.

The new aquatic facility will include an eight-lane, 25-yard short course competition pool; expansive glass with Eastern exposure; handicap accessible bleacher seating for 350 people plus an observation deck, all with clear site-lines; a statement-making wood deck roof; and expanded and renovated locker room facilities branded accordingly for VIS and STA.

Given its increased size and functionality, in addition to being the training and competition home for the STA and VIS swim and dive teams, the new aquatic center will serve local swim clubs and Catholic Athletic Association schools. During the school day, the pool will be used for curriculum-based initiatives.

“From the outset, Opus understood the significance of this facility for the Saint Thomas and Visitation communities. They recognized that any investment in our facilities is an investment in our students and their success today and well into the future,” said Ragatz. “They understood that this was never just about a pool. It was about a legacy.”

• More about STA/VIS Michel Family Aquatic Center