The high school was constructed at a cost of $8.2 million and a design capacity of 965 students, with a building that featured many large roof spans above open spaces and unusually shaped rooms that added substantially to the cost above those of other facilities constructed at the same time for comparable numbers of students. Ground was broken for the new facility in September 1971 and the first group of 701 students started attending the school two years later, in September 1973.