After the new school is open, the old Ballou building will be demolished. In its place will be a new football stadium and other outdoor athletic facilities to complement the new school's indoor basketball courts, track, pool and fitness center.

About the only initial goal that the new Ballou won't meet is net-zero energy use, partly because of the building's many and diverse uses.

Still, DGS's Hanlon is more than satisfied with how "green" the new Ballou facility will be. DGS expects that the building will achieve a LEED-Platinum rating, thanks to its high-efficiency heating and cooling systems, low-E glass coatings and rooftop solar panels that will generate power for purchase by the local electric utility. "As a large facilities owner, we need to be good stewards of energy—continually pushing the envelope and doing everything we can to reduce carbon," Hanlon says.

He adds, "The lessons we learned on earlier high schools were applied to Ballou, and I have no doubt that Ballou will guide the next one we do." Just as high schoolers pick up bits of knowledge from each assignment, so do engineers, contractors and owners. Hanlon says, "Every time you do something, you get a little better at it."