One of the team’s priorities was the wise usage of the public bond funds that made this project possible, which meant focusing on durable, low-maintenance materials like tilt-up concrete panels, tile and polished concrete floors, Garcia adds.

“Thanks to strong collaboration between the district, design team and contractors, the result is a facility that’s efficient to operate and maintain, built to last and ready to serve Tooele County students for generations to come,” he says.

Deseret Peak’s football stadium features a wing-shaped canopy, similar to the one located at the front of the high school, providing both shade and shelter to sports fans.
Photo by Alan Blakely

Site Situation

This one-of-a-kind high school spans 340,000 sq ft across a 45-acre site that has an approximately 60-ft slope from the southeast to the northwest corner, says Mark Spence, project executive with Hughes General Contractors.

“With careful consideration and planning with the design team, we were able to help orient the building to follow the natural contours of the site,” he says. “By creating a retaining wall and separating the building into a three-story section and a two-story section, we were able to maximize the use of the existing grades and reduce our cut and fill on the site.”

During initial design, the team realized that a FEMA floodplain encroached on about 7 acres at the site’s northeast corner, affecting the original plans. Working in close collaboration, the design and construction team reconfigured the site to its current 45 acres, leaving everything undeveloped from the FEMA floodplain eastward.

“We were still able to provide soccer, football, baseball and softball fields and six tennis courts. We were also able to balance the site to reduce the amount of haul-off by placing and grading excess soil in the undeveloped area,” Spence adds.

The building itself is composed primarily of three structure types: load bearing masonry block, structural steel and load bearing tilt-up concrete. Large portions of the corridors and common areas have exposed concrete polished floors, and much of the joint spacing spanned more than 150 ft.

But procuring materials proved challenging as lead times and costs increased in the time leading up to the project’s April 2022 groundbreaking. Joist and deck lead times were 14 months alone, Spence recalls.

“We worked with the design team to switch gears and use more structural steel beams in lieu of joist and deck, greatly reducing the procurement time frame. However, we still needed joists in some locations and issued an early procurement bid package to accommodate those time frames,” Spence says. “Additionally, we worked closely with the school district to find storage facilities for other long lead products. We had warehouses full of materials not only to control the delivery but also to reduce the price increases that were changing drastically.”

Located above the school’s common/ lunch area is a flexible work and collaboration space that provides students with natural light and expansive views.
Photo by Alan Blakely

A Tilt-Up Masterpiece

One of the primary reasons the school features a combined tilt-up and CMU structural system—in addition to the schedule and cost savings—was to address a regional shortage of available masonry labor. This allowed work to continue, even with the limited available workforce.

“The concrete tilt-up construction in particular is also one of a kind, where walls tower over 80 vertical feet and weigh over 155,000 pounds. These tilt-up walls are identified as some of the tallest tilt-up panels in the state of Utah, and there are 275 individual tilt-up panels on the project,” Spence says. To support these structures, “Hughes also developed a patented floor system called MagicSlab, an extended joint concrete floor system,” he adds.

The combination of tilt-up and masonry also provided the high school with acoustical benefits, durability and design flexibility.

Instead of worrying about cladding, painting or other such means of hiding these structural elements, the design team decided to prominently expose structural tilt-up concrete in key interior spaces.

However, with unpainted, unpatched tilt-up panels serving as both structure and finish on the 1,200-seat auditorium, student commons area and athletic facilities, ensuring meticulous finishes on the first pour was critical. As a result, every panel had to meet rigorous aesthetic and structural standards on first placement, without relying on patching or cosmetic adjustments.

“The unique design of our custom three-dimensional tilt-up forms and integral color in the panels provide a look that has not been accomplished in the industry,” Spence says.

This custom form-liner system eliminated nearly all visible joints, even at panel corners, creating the visual effect of massive, monolithic walls. In the end, the walls gave the impression of being single-cast concrete elements, despite being tilt wall.

Ensuring proper installation of such massive elements required extensive planning, highly detailed shop drawings and carefully choreographed lifting sequences, which all helped ensure both safety and accuracy throughout the erection process.

“We were able to complete this project on time [and] cleanly, with little to no impact to the students and teachers. Additionally, we were able to come in under budget,” says Spence, noting that key strategies included early bid packages, material storage, robust schedule management, material procurement management and material selection processes.

Construction was completed in May 2025, and already the facility is providing a positive and healthy learning environment for students and teachers, Spence says. “Previously, some of the students had been housed in portables, but now that this new high school has been built, they have better classrooms and resources,” he says. “The new Deseret Peak High School will allow for future growth.”