McCarthy Renovates 2 Culinary Arts Classrooms for Tempe Union High School District

Oct. 13, 2011 - PRLog -- With cooking shows like “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Top Chef” and “The Naked Chef” receiving top TV ratings, today’s high school students are eager to learn more about the culinary arts. In response to this heightened interest, the Tempe Union High School District offers its students specialized education in the culinary arts. Two high schools within the district – McClintock and Mountain Pointe – recently received upgraded kitchen facilities that rival the environments seen on these top TV shows.

“Our culinary arts programs are extremely popular with students and provide them with career readiness skills in an environment that mimics a commercial kitchen similar to what you would find in a restaurant,” said Nori Cannell, Director of Guidance and Career and Technical Education for the Tempe Union High School District. “After completing these classes at their high school, many students continue their secondary culinary education at East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT), enroll in a cooperative education class their senior year and work a paid internship in a culinary setting, or receive scholarships to attend college or specialty schools after they graduate.”

The high school renovations were completed by Tempe-based McCarthy Building Companies in a compressed 60-day timeframe over summer break. McCarthy took two former home economics classrooms and revamped them into state-of-the-art culinary academies, including stainless steel countertops, industrial hoods, gas ranges and convection ovens, industrial dishwashers, reach-in freezers and coolers; and prep sinks (before and after photos are available).

“From a construction perspective, these classroom remodels were challenging due to the extremely tight schedule,” said Rob Langhoff, Senior Vice President of Education Services at McCarthy. “The students were never impacted by the construction. This is the third culinary remodel we’ve done for the district and the new classrooms truly reflect a state-of-the-art, industrial kitchen space.”

Each 2,200-square-foot classroom was completed with a kitchen for teaching that includes student tables and seating. There is also a flat screen, camera and microphone used by the instructor to ensure all students can see and hear the presentation (cooking lessons are recorded and can be accessed by the students outside of class). There are also six student cooking areas in each classroom with versatile stainless steel carts for preparation and electricity cords hanging from the ceiling for easy access to equipment.

The district utilized EVIT satellite funding to complete the renovations, which cost approximately $500,000 at each school. Similar renovations at two additional schools – Desert Vista and Marcos de Niza – have been put on hold for at least a year due to budget cuts. Corona del Sol and Tempe High School underwent similar renovations more than a year ago.

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About McCarthy Building Companies Inc.
McCarthy Building Companies Inc. is the nation’s 10th largest domestic general contractor (Engineering News-Record, May 2010). The firm has been building in the education market for more than 50 years. Committed to the construction of high-performance buildings, the company has managed construction or built more than 300 K-12 school projects nationwide, totaling more than $2 billion in construction value, and 200 higher education projects on more than 50 college campuses. The McCarthy Southwest Division is based in Tempe, Ariz. McCarthy also has offices in Newport Beach, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco, Calif.; Las Vegas; Albuquerque; Dallas and Houston; St. Louis and Atlanta. McCarthy is 100 percent employee-owned. More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com.