Overview
When White Bear Lake Area Schools unified its high school onto one expanded North Campus — the centerpiece of the district's 2019 bond referendum — Dimension Sign won Work Scope 10-B, the signage package, on a project run by construction manager Kraus-Anderson with Wold Architects designing. A public-bid, bonded contract with our own certified payroll. Across eight overlapping construction phases we fabricated more than 1,400 sign faces, stripped 329 legacy signs off the walls, and re-identified every door of a school that kept teaching students while it was rebuilt around them.
01 / The challenge
Eight phases turned over between December 2022 and August 2024, and every one had to open with its signs on the walls. The construction manager's meeting minutes said it plainly: these signs are special order and cannot be changed once ordered — while room names and numbers kept evolving right up to fabrication, and the sign frames alone carried a 90-day lead time. Underneath it all sat the removal problem: decades of legacy signage held on with hardened tape and janitor-applied silicone that could pull an eight-inch patch of paint clean off a wall.
02 / Our approach
We ran our scope like it was the whole job: physical samples and complete submittals cleared before the first turnover, fabrication released phase by phase against the construction calendar, and a thermoformed ADA system — raised text and Grade 2 braille under the district's orange — at nearly every door. When the district decided mid-project that the code-minimum wayfinding wasn't enough, we engineered the upgrade by change order: 42 framed printed directories and You-Are-Here maps, mechanically anchored, with the map data rebuilt by hand when it wouldn't survive the CAD-to-print translation. Wrong-room signs were remade free, the final phase installed in October 2024 — and before closeout we walked the building with the district, trained their custodians to mount future signs, and left them the tape, silicone, and know-how to do it.
Seven years. Every campus.
The high school is the flagship, but it is one chapter in a district relationship that keeps compounding: signage for the South Campus addition in 2021, five district buildings signed in a single summer of 2022, this unified campus through 2024, Central Middle School's 370-sign program after it, building letters for Mariner Middle School, and four cast-aluminum dedication plaques across the district in 2025. When a school district keeps handing you its buildings, that's the testimonial.
- South Campus addition — halo-lit Bears paw and shelter signage (2021)
- Five district buildings signed in one summer (2022)
- The unified North Campus program — this project (2022–24)
- Central Middle School's 370-sign renovation program (2024–25)
- Four cast-aluminum dedication plaques across the district (2025)
- Our submittal specs now travel with the district's architect as the standard for new campus work
- The district's next letterset request came in 2026 — our estimate went back the same day
Inside the building
Scope & features
- Public-bid Work Scope 10-B under Kraus-Anderson's construction management — bonded, certified payroll
- 1,400+ sign faces fabricated across phased releases, 2022–2024
- Thermoformed ADA room identification with raised text and Grade 2 braille
- District-branded sign family in White Bear Lake's PMS 166C orange
- 42 framed directory and You-Are-Here map units, added by change order
- Tornado safe room signage in crimson for the storm-shelter campus
- 329 legacy signs removed without wrecking the walls behind them
- Installs timed to eight phase turnovers — zero missed openings
- Wrong-room signs remade at no charge; custodians trained at closeout
- Four cast-aluminum dedication plaques for district buildings followed in 2025
Materials
- Thermoformed acrylic ADA faces
- Grade 2 braille · raised copy
- Printed ACM directories & maps
- Architectural aluminum & frame systems
- Cast-aluminum dedication plaques
- VHB tape · silicone · mechanical anchors
