Washoe County School District (WSCD) officials released a rendering of the Wildcreek area high school Wednesday, and presented the design of the building, along with estimate construction costs, to the Capital Funding Protection Committee (CFPC) Thursday.

"The first step in [finalizing the design] is to give an update on the Capital Funding Protection Committee," Chief Operating Officer for WCSD Pete Etchart says. "Along with a cost range estimate of what it's going to cost. And hopefully we'll be back in October for final budget approval."

The district has worked with several agencies, including the City of Sparks, NV Energy, the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority and the Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency. They also faced opposition from residents, and engaged with members of the public to help design the school. It's been a long process to get to this point.

"We actually started working on this almost instantly after the voters passed our capital funding initiative," Etchart says. "So it's been a long haul, but we're not there yet."

Thursday's meeting was one of the last chances for the public to give input on the project. The CFPC was updated and no action was taken. Chief Facilities Management Officer for WCSD Adam Searcy says changes requested by the public have already been made.

"We've moved where the building is," Searcy says. "We've adjusted the location of exterior lighting."

Officials estimate the project will cost up to $216 million.

During Thursday's presentation, a third-party cost-estimator gave a price for the Wildcreek High School project at a little more than $200 million. For comparison, the third-party estimator did the same analysis for building Spanish Springs high school on the same piece of land, and they estimated it would cost a little more than $192 million.

Etchart says compared for inflation, the estimated cost isn't that high, especially when you factor technology.

"It's going to be a more energy efficient school than we've ever built before," Etchart says. "And so sometimes you have to look at not only the initial cost, which is very comparable to our older schools if you look at today's dollars. And also you have to look a the value of this school in the long run."

The new school will be 295,000 square feet with a music suite, a performing arts center and three gyms.

"This is our first new prototype high school that we've built in the last 15-20 years, so we're excited about this,” Etchart says. "It's a more compact, three-story high school. It has kind of more of a community college-feel where you have more collaborative spaces, you have learning stairs, distributive food [or multiple locations where food is served]."

The district hopes to start construction on the Orr Ditch this year, and on the school in Spring 2020. The school is planned to open for the 2022 fall semester.