CHARLOTTE — Charlotte Catholic High School broke ground on the first phase of improvements to its campus Tuesday, May 19, with a ceremony on the school’s athletic field.
Students, parents, benefactors, diocesan staff and community members turned out for the event celebrating the beginning of the project, which will include upgrading the existing field and sideline to premium artificial turf and renovating the existing media center into a multi-faceted student life center.
The improvements are being funded by a capital campaign, “Grounded in Tradition: Focused on the Future,” which launched in February and aims to raise $8.5 million for several large projects to enhance student life at the school, including the new turf and media center improvements.
Plans for the next phases will move forward once additional funding milestones are reached. They include transforming a small office building recently purchased by MACS and adjacent to the campus into the Computer, Technology and Engineering Innovation Center, which will support classes in engineering, robotics and other technologies.
Finally, the new field house and flexible space complex will be designed to offer a multi-purpose hub that will include areas for sports performance, recovery and athletic training, dedicated spaces for health and wellness education and team meetings, and a flexible space that can easily be transformed from classrooms to larger spaces for after-school activities.
Mercy Sister Paulette Williams, who was principal at the school from 1980 to 2000, spoke at the ceremony and called it “an exciting day in the life of Charlotte Catholic High School.”
“We today stand on the shoulders literally of those who came before us,” she said. “Their donations and all of the benefactors in the 80-year history of Charlotte Catholic brought us here. We should never forget their role in helping Charlotte Catholic to take the next big step in our life. May God continue to bless us on this journey.”
Kurt Telford, head of school at CCHS, spoke to the students in the stands about the role the improvements will play in their lives.
“This project is ultimately about you and the generations of students who will be with you and follow you,” Telford said. “The spaces we celebrate today will create new opportunities for learning, innovation, competition, unity and most importantly faith formation. One day you will be able to look back and say you were here when this exciting new chapter in our school’s history began.”
Work on turfing the field is set to begin June 1 after the school’s lacrosse and girl’s soccer teams complete post-season play, and work on the new student center will take place during the summer. School officials said the goal is to have the new field ready for the beginning of football season and for the student life center to be complete by the time teachers return in August.
The total cost for all phases of the improvement project is expected to reach $10.5 million, which includes a $2 million contribution from the Mecklenburg Area Catholic Schools Capital Fee.
Choate Construction is the contractor for the project and Little and Associates are the architects working on the improvements.
— Christina Lee Knauss. Photos by Christina Lee Knauss and Siobhan Whipp
