Clovis Unified plans to build a $77 million elementary school in fast-growing area
Clovis Unified School District plans to build a new elementary school near Perrin Road and North Minnewawa Avenue, an area undergoing a housing development boom.
A document submitted to the school board for review on Wednesday showed that the district is in discussions with an architect firm, Teter Architects & Engineers, regarding design services for a new elementary school.
The proposed school, which is in the planning stages, will be located within Clovis’s new expanded northern boundary, where developers are filling the open field with thousands of new homes.
“We track every house that’s being built and permits that have been pulled,” said Denver Stairs, the district’s assistant superintendent of facilities. “That’s when we move forward with building a subject.”
The 507 acres between Shepherd Avenue and Behymer Avenue, currently mostly orchards or vacant, will feature 2,718 single- and multi-family homes, known as Vista Ranch. Lennar Homes is building 385 houses on the southeast side of the school that will be part of the Heritage Grove planned community. East of Minnewawa Avenue lies Shepherd North, planned community of 605 residential units on a 155-acre parcel of land.
The school will sit in the middle of the field on a 20-acre parcel with an enrollment capacity of 750 students, according to Stairs.
Clovis Unified currently has no plan to add an intermediate or high school in the area. The elementary graduates will go to Granite Ridge Intermediate and Clovis North High, Stairs said.
The estimated total project cost is $77 million, according to the district document.
“The school will tentatively open in August 2030. We’ve got some time to start designing this school, which is covered under our current bond,” Stairs said. “The construction of the school will need to be funded out of our next bond measure.”
Clovis Unified will ask voters to renew the Measure A bond in 2028, Stairs said.
Of the $400 million Measure A renewed in 2024, $180 million went toward the completion of Clovis South High School, whose total budget has soared to over $600 million due to inflation and rising construction costs after the pandemic.
Despite the new housing developments driving demand for new schools, Clovis Unified opted for a phased approach to uphold its commitment to the community to not increase property taxes, said Kelly Avants, the district’s spokesperson.
Clovis Unified has factored inflation into the new school’s $77 million budget, Stairs said.
The projected price tag for the new elementary school is more than double what it cost the school district to build an elementary school in 2019.
The construction cost of Janet L. Young Elementary, which opened in 2020, exceeded $30 million, according to district officials. The district’s newest elementary school, Satoshi Hirayama Elementary, opened in August 2024 and cost $54 million to construct.
