CRETE, NE — The south edge of downtown Crete is now the gateway to Crete Public Schools.

The district opened the Cardinal Welcome Center during the last week of November and is introducing the remodeled former ShopKo building to the community. Superintendent Dr. Josh McDowell says the facility consolidates services that were previously spread throughout town.

“We were sending you to potentially three different places to (register a student)," McDowell said. "Now, again, it’s welcoming, parking is easy, you can come in. We have two people right up front that they are here to serve you and they’re going to make it as easy as possible for us to provide you the services and get you connected with Crete Public Schools.”

29 full-time employees are based at the Welcome Center. It includes an expanded school board meeting room, administrative offices, the IT department, two mothers rooms, space for adult education and the Sixpence program, which is designed to teach new parents.

“It looks like a break room… but this is actually a classroom," McDowell said. "So our Sixpence programming gets taught out of this. This is designed to simulate an apartment.”

In all, the Welcome Center spans about 26,000 square feet and cost $3.7 million to renovate. The money came entirely from the district’s building fund and didn’t affect the tax levy. The district is slashing $36,000 in yearly rent payments by consolidating to the one facility.

“When we drive by, people might look at this and go, ‘wow that is really nice.’ Well, it is, but we are living within our means and we are always cognizant and trying to be good stewards of our taxpayer dollars,” McDowell said.

For McDowell, the building’s best function is removing barriers between the district and local families.

“We want this to be: when you’re new to Crete, whether you’re in Crete already, if you need to connect with Crete Public Schools, you know where to go now and we’re going to get you what you need,” McDowell said.

The district's old administration building is now sitting vacant and the board is developing options for how to use it.