New locker room at Arrowhead H.S. comes with big price tag, some controversy

HARTLAND (WITI) -- A state-of-the-art locker room at Arrowhead High School in Hartland comes with a big price tag -- and that's creating some big waves on social media. Do kids really need a locker room that rivals one used by pro athletes?

The new locker room at Arrowhead High School was designed by Thysee Design in Oregon, WI. It came with a price tag of a little more than $600,000 -- about half of that came from a private donor. Even so, Twitter has been abuzz with comments like, "This isn't the NBA," "Arrowhead is nuts for this locker room," and "Is this locker room necessary? Good grief."

FOX6 News called up the team that designed the locker room -- Thysee Design. They say what you see is the frosting on the cake. Much of the money went into redoing infrastructure that was in bad shape.

"There was a long-standing construction project to improve these locker rooms that were uninhabitable. They had issues with HVAC. They had some infrastructure issues. And the original intent of the project was to improve the space and the coach wanted something special for his program," said Loren Zemlicka and Geoff Sabin, locker room designers.

The designers say the "pro look" is for the kids -- to make them proud. That's open to debate. But some parents and the designers say the sparkle on the locker room was a gift -- and they hope it's a gift that inspires.