Sacred Heart Academy will soon be enveloped by construction. A groundbreaking ceremony was held Friday morning for a gymnasium, the first ever to be built at the private Catholic school.
It will be built at the front of the campus, located at 110 Keating Drive off Amherst Street.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Father Stanley Krempa after the brief ceremony. “We’re building a splendid gym for an already splendid school.”
A few of the school’s 241 prekindergarten through eighth-grade students helped break ground on the future gym site.
“Boys and girls of Sacred Heart, you too had a part in this,” said Principal Susan Parks during the ceremony. “With you and your fundraising efforts, you and your families raised a significant amount of money toward our goal. Without the work of everyone together, this wonderful day would never have come.”
The new gym will have a multiuse basketball court, bleachers that seat up to 200 people, locker rooms, administrative offices and storage space.
Construction of the 11,475-square-foot facility is set to begin by the end of the month, said Joseph Buchbauer, project manager for Broadway-based Lantz Construction Co., the school’s contractor. The project will require relocating the school’s outgoing driveway, he added.
As part of the almost $4 million project, the school’s kitchen and multipurpose room will be renovated, as well as the parish’s kitchen.
The 3,800-square-foot renovation will result in a new prep kitchen and a stage.
The renovation will be completed by the start of the 2016-17 school year, and construction of the gym will be done by the end of 2016, Buchbauer said.
Sacred Heart Academy opened in 1957. An addition of classrooms and labs was completed in 2008.
— Contact Amy Alonzo at aalonzo@winchesterstar.com | Photo by Scott Mason, The Winchester Star
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