Culinary Arts Classroom Renovations – Blue Valley Unified School District 229

As part of Blue Valley Unified School District’s efforts to expand its Career and Technical Education (CTE) culinary arts program, existing classrooms across six district locations were renovated into commercial-level culinary kitchens. Designed to provide students with hands-on learning environments that reflect those found in the commercial food service and hospitality industries, the new spaces feature high-quality commercial kitchen equipment to better prepare students for future careers.

These spaces were not originally designed to accommodate the demands of commercial kitchen layouts and ventilation. Henderson Engineers provided building systems design to support the conversion. Large commercial hoods, significant exhaust and makeup air requirements, and tight existing plenum spaces required careful coordination throughout design and construction.

At Blue Valley West High School, the culinary space was located on the first floor of a three-story portion of the building, requiring Henderson to work closely with the architectural and structural teams to create a rated mechanical chase through the existing building and concrete structure to reach roof-mounted mechanical equipment. With construction occurring in two fast-paced summer phases, Henderson remained closely engaged with the architect and contractor, participating in weekly coordination calls and responding quickly to RFIs and field conditions. This collaborative, solutions-focused approach helped deliver enhanced educational cooking environments that give students experience in kitchens representative of the commercial culinary industry.