A steep, 90-foot drop in elevation and soil that shifts under pressure might have stopped a lesser project. Instead, it became the defining engineering puzzle behind Creek View High School, the new campus that made Medina Valley Independent School District a two-high-school system this year. The school opened in August 2026 with students in grades nine through 11, giving the fast-growing district west of San Antonio its second comprehensive high school.
The project carried a price tag described as $264 million, according to Texas A&M College of Architecture, though other accounts give differing figures: the San Antonio Express-News reported $264.5 million in bond funding, while My Neighborhood News put the estimated combined cost of two construction packages at $261.6 million, including a primary construction package valued at approximately $239.6 million and a separate $22 million site-development package. The campus's exact footprint is similarly disputed across sources, with figures ranging from 425,000 square feet to approximately 435,000 square feet to more than 450,000 square feet, according to The Business Journals. Student capacity figures also vary, with The Business Journals' provided facts citing a design capacity of 2,400 students while the Express-News reported the school can serve up to 2,200.
Two Childhood Friends Lead the Build
What isn't in dispute is who ran the job. R.T. Hoog served as project manager and Trevor Mangold as superintendent, and both are Medina Valley ISD alumni who grew up together in the community and still live in the area, per The Business Journals. Hoog managed schedules, budgets, and coordination with district leaders, according to Texas A&M College of Architecture, while Mangold coordinated as many as 380 subcontractors at peak construction — described elsewhere as 380 subcontractor employees on site, per The Business Journals' sourcing.
The project reportedly stands as Bartlett Cocke General Contractors' largest school project by size and construction cost at the time it was undertaken, per the same account. The build involved collaboration among Medina Valley ISD, architecture firm O'Connell Robertson, Bartlett Cocke, and various trade partners. Bartlett Cocke is described as an employee-owned Texas commercial construction firm that has partnered with Texas communities since 1959, with offices in San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, including Bryan-College Station, serving markets that include healthcare, higher education, K-12 education, civic and government, commercial, and industrial and manufacturing work.
Carving a Campus Into a Hillside
The site itself presented a serious engineering challenge. With a 90-foot drop from one end to the other, the design required Hoog and Mangold's team to carve the structure directly into a hillside, according to Texas A&M College of Architecture. The Business Journals' sourcing similarly describes expansive soils and nearly 90 feet of elevation change at the site, and says the project team approached construction as three separate structures with multiple work fronts, coordinating retaining walls, grading, and drainage structures to manage runoff.
Crews reportedly used two tower cranes and placed up to 50,000 square feet of concrete per week, per that same reporting. One of the more striking individual components was the auditorium roof, which required a steel joist weighing 50,000 pounds, spanning more than 120 feet, and roughly 14 feet deep, according to The Business Journals. Ground broke on the project in October 2023 to meet the district's rapid population growth, per Texas A&M College of Architecture, though My Neighborhood News reported construction began in November 2023 and reached substantial completion in June 2026.
Filling a Fast-Growing District
Creek View opened to address enrollment growth and expand the district's capacity beyond its old single-high-school model, providing Medina Valley ISD's second comprehensive high school. Medina Valley ISD served around 11,000 students as of mid-2026, double its 2018 total enrollment, according to the Express-News, which also described the district as the fourth-fastest-growing in Texas — a ranking News 4 San Antonio had put at fifth-fastest in 2024. A district demographer told officials in February 2025 that enrollment had grown by a little over 3,200 students in the previous five years and could reach about 14,000 students in five years and about 19,000 in a decade, per Citizen Portal, citing dozens of large subdivisions and thousands of buildable lots active within the district.
Voters approved more than $660 million in bond funding for district projects since 2023, the Express-News reported, with News 4 San Antonio noting that two bond programs — approved in 2023 and 2024 — have funded the growth push, with Bond 2024 covering a new middle school, two new elementary schools, physical-education building improvements at Medina Valley High School, and safety and security updates. District materials said Creek View would open for the 2026-2027 school year with ninth, 10th, and 11th graders, while all seniors in the Class of 2027 would attend Medina Valley High School since Creek View would not have a senior class in its first year. Melissa Gonzales was named Creek View's principal after previously serving as principal at Loma Alta Middle School, according to Medina Valley Independent School District.
Opening-Year Numbers Still Unsettled
Even enrollment projections for Creek View's debut year carry some disagreement. The Express-News reported the school was expected to welcome about 1,200 students in its first year, while district materials projected around 1,300 students for the 2026-2027 opening year. My Neighborhood News reported the district held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Creek View on July 29 at 6 p.m. at 308 County Road 381 in San Antonio, and Medina Valley Independent School District's own news page later referenced celebrating the campus's official opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Creek View isn't the only new building keeping pace with the district's growth. Medina Valley ISD opened Silos Elementary, its sixth elementary campus, in 2024, when it was expected to house more than 850 students in its first year after being approved by voters in the 2019 bond, according to News 4 San Antonio. As of 2026, the district had another middle school under construction and a pair of new elementary schools in design, according to Yahoo News, even as the Express-News noted that nearby districts had closed almost 40 schools since 2023, including seven ahead of the current school year — a contrast that underscores just how unusual Medina Valley's growth trajectory has become.
