The groundbreaking ceremony for the new Bellevue West auditorium was held on Friday, May 24 at 9 a.m.
Among those in attendance were officials including principal Kevin Rohlfs, superintendent Dr. Jeff Rippe, and architect Ralph Gladbach.
“Our current auditorium only seats about 400 which at times has made it even too small for a single class meeting,” Rohlfs said. “So many of our concerts we have to do one or two nights because so many people want to come that we can’t get everybody in the auditorium in one night, so this is really going to help alleviate all that.”
The lead architect Ralph Gladbach also spoke on the construction of the auditorium.
“It takes a lot of planning with an auditorium project,” Gladbach explained. “There’s a lot of special designs involved, you know, with acoustics, sound systems, interior design. We have a lot of specific team members that really came on board to pull this thing together.”
Gladbach said he has completed other projects for Bellevue Public Schools, but this project is different.
“It takes a lot of planning with an auditorium project,” Gladbach said. “There’s a lot of specially designs involved, you know, with acoustics, sound systems, interior design. We have a lot of specific team members that really came on board to pull this thing together. Auditoriums are highly specialized, and you don’t come across these very often.”
The auditorium is expected to be completed by the fall of 2025.
