St. Paul's Humboldt High School celebrates $48M remodel

Four years after its groundbreaking, St. Paul's Humboldt High School renovation — a project that would rise in scope to $48 million — finally was ready for its open house Thursday.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was set to showcase improvements that include two three-story additions, a spiffy new entrance and a relocated career and technical education center.

The West Side school, which also houses middle school classrooms, has a diverse student body speaking more than 10 languages, and the project, like that across town at Como Park Senior High, has redesigned spaces seeking to provide students with a "21st-century education."

Neighborhood leaders, including City Council Member Rebecca Noecker, who founded the group West Siders for Strong Schools, have worked for years to try to stem the exodus of West Side students to schools elsewhere.

Two years ago, the Humboldt renovation became a symbol of lax oversight by district leaders when a then-five-year, $484 million citywide facilities plan blew past initial estimates by tens of millions of dollars.

The Humboldt project originally was budgeted for $26.8 million.

A consultant hired then by the district determined the school system was not overpaying for the work being done but had changed the scope of the projects after they got underway, and officials should have done a better job alerting school board members.

The pace of work has slowed since then, but improvements are coming to American Indian Magnet School, Jie Ming Mandarin Immersion Academy and Ramsey Middle School.