Forging ahead
St. Joseph to build new high school with community help
St. Joseph High School freshman Ella Martin walks the same halls her grandmother did decades ago. Nostalgia aside, the teenager is looking forward to that changing.
A $10.9 million capital campaign is underway to build a two-story high school for grades 7-12 to replace the one built in 1951.
“People are excited and giving, and I’m appreciative of that,” said Matt Tucker, lead high school principal.
To date, $8.7 million has been raised. “It was about two years ago that we did a study to see if it was in the best interest to continue to repair infrastructure in the existing high school in terms of long-term needs. Back when the building was built, codes and standards were not what they are today,” he said.
From technology to energy efficiency, the cost to remodel the building and repair infrastructure “just didn’t make sense. When you really crunch the numbers, it made sense to build something new,” Tucker said.
Joanna Nabholz, an architect with H+N Architects in Conway, designed the new high school, as well as the Spiritan Center, which opened in 2018. She’s a 2003 graduate of St. Joseph High School.
“This project is many, many years in the making. We (H+N) started with the overall church and school master plan 10 to 15 years ago,” she said. “We did surveys, and the high school was one of the major things — everybody said we needed a new high school.”
Nabholz said she “loves that old building,” but architects determined it was going to cost almost as much to remodel the current high school and bring it up to code as it would to build one.
“I feel like it’s been talked about, [people have] been excited about it, and everybody knew it was coming. Two years ago, we started planning, doing a preliminary design, space planning, meeting with principals and teachers to see what all was needed,” Nabholz said.
The $10.9 million budget includes construction, furnishings and technology, professional fees, demolition of the existing high school and a building-maintenance fund. The private Christian school is not eligible for state funds.
One benefactor made a $4 million matching gift, and the school raised $4 million.
“A large portion that helped us bridge that is we have a very generous $1 million donation from the flea market that supports
the school,” Tucker said.
The project must have diocese and Vatican approval, and Tucker said he is expecting that by the end of May.
Construction is scheduled to begin in June and to be completed for the 2022-23 school year, Tucker said. The school will be built in a parking lot adjacent to the existing high school — bordered by College Avenue to the north and Chestnut to the east. After students occupy the new building, the existing high school will be torn down.
Prior to construction, a science-classroom annex on the existing high school will be demolished, as well as part of an administrative suite on the current building. Two portable buildings have already been taken down.
Other projects had to be priorities for the dominoes to fall into place. The Spiritan Center, which is used by the school and the public, was built and parking was created in preparation for the new high school, Nabholz said.
The Spiritan Center was designed to complement St. Joseph Catholic Church, which was rebuilt after a tornado destroyed it in 1883, Nabholz said. The new high school will have many of the same architectural elements as the Spiritan Center, “but we wanted it to look a little more collegiate,” she said.
The new high school will contain 38,500 square feet; the existing high school has 21,000 square feet; the two portable classrooms had 1,400 square feet.
Enrollment is 207 in grades seven through 12, Tucker said, adding that grades seven and eight are regarded as junior high, but they are in the high school building. Nabholz said the new high school is designed for 300 students.
Tucker said the first floor of the new building includes an administrative suite — which would include the principal, counselor and registrar — “and a large student union to hold our cyber cafe we currently have and create just a nice gathering spot.”
He said plans are to have a “spirit store” in the student union to sell St. Joseph Bulldogs merchandise.
The first floor will also house the music/band classroom, art classroom and a space to bring back industrial technology, which has been on hold the past academic year and will be reintroduced when the building opens. Also included will be a communications classroom and computer lab.
“The space I’m really excited about is what we’re calling … the black-box theater,” Tucker said. “As a school and a church, we’re a parish community. The school draws off the Spiritan Center in regard to space. If we’re having a dance, homecoming — prom would be an example — we have to utilize that space. That blackbox theater would be a space large enough that we could hold those events in the school and take the pressure off the Spiritan Center.”
The black-box theater will have a dressing room and storage area for the drama department.
The second floor will include most of the traditional classes, Tucker said, such as English, math, religion, and family and consumer sciences.
Tucker said the new high school will increase the safety of students who now have to leave the high school building for certain classes, including family and consumer sciences and religion.
“Students are having to exit multiple times a day, and there is a busy railroad track across campus” that delays students, he said.
In the new high school, students will only have to leave the building for sports, lunch and Mass, he said.
High School Principal Teri Breeding said the project is taking shape.
“I’m excited. I love seeing the changes already taking place; it makes it more real,” she said. “We’re working hard to switch things around to get ready.”
Tucker said the new building will not only benefit St. Joseph School, but will also enhance downtown Conway.
“We are a member of the downtown community. We would like to think we anchor the south end of that downtown community,” he said.
Tucker said he and Nabholz met with the Conway Historic District Commission to “explain some architectural details,” and members were appreciative of Nabholz’s vision.
Nabholz echoed Tucker’s opinion on the aesthetic improvement to downtown.
“I think this building and the next addition, as well, will help define our campus and be an extension of the downtown corridor, and the church will kind of be the center of our campus,” she said.
The high school is phase 1 of a long-term plan. Phase 2 would include building a 300-student K-6 school to move elementary students west across Harkrider Street from their current location to the parish grounds. St. Joseph Middle School would be remodeled for preschool students, who are now in the elementary building.
That would require a future capital campaign, but Tucker is focused on this one.
He praised the work of the capital-campaign committee and said people may support the building project in different ways.
“I first need them to give prayerful consideration to discern their involvement with this capital campaign. We might need their back; there may be some physical work that needs to be done,” he said, such as landscaping.
“It boils down to time, talents and treasure. Simple prayers for the success of this campaign don’t cost anybody anything,” Tucker said.
A link to donate to the project is available at www. stjosephconway.org.
Tucker, standing in front of the current high school, said, “There are a lot of memories in there.”
It’s time to make new ones, though.
Ella, 14, is a fourth-generation St. Joseph student. She said she was “really surprised” when she heard that a high school would be built and is happy that she will get to enjoy the facility before she graduates in 2024.
“I’m looking forward to a bigger, newer space. I think it’ll improve our learning a lot having a new updated space to learn in,” she said. Technology in the new high school will be “a big improvement” over the current outdated equipment and computers, she said.
In addition to the physical space, Ella said, she is happy to see the enthusiasm generated for the project.
“I’m just excited about how involved everyone is in it and how happy they are to give — just bringing everybody together,” she said.
Ella’s grandmother, Margaret Martin of Conway, graduated from St. Joseph School in 1967. A retired Mayflower teacher, she is a substitute teacher at St. Joseph.
Martin said she has many fond memories of the high school building and her classmates.
“We were just like one big tight family; everybody knew everybody. If somebody needed help, everybody jumped in,” she said.
Despite her fondness for the high school, Martin said, she knows it’s time for a new facility.
“They definitely need the expansion.When you have window units for air-conditioning, that’s old,” she said, laughing. “Am I going to hate to see the old one go? I definitely am. … It’ll be sad when the old one goes down.”
Although the building will be gone, Martin said, “the memories will still be with us.”