Just a few months after
The Ramirez Family Foundation announced it had purchased the former
Cardinal Stritch University campus with plans to convert it into a north side campus for
St. Augustine Preparatory Academy,
Abby Andrietsch, Aug Prep’s president and chief executive officer, provided updates on the project for a room full of Christian education boosters.
Speaking at the River Club of Mequon on Thursday morning as part of
Concordia University Wisconsin’s annual Concordia Christian Leadership Series, Andrietsch gave attendees a sense of the ambitious plans The Ramirez Family Foundation has for the 43.5-acre former Cardinal Stritch campus in Glendale and Fox Point.
Although Gus Ramirez, co-chairman of the foundation, had initially estimated renovations and improvements to the campus’ grounds and 12 buildings would cost between $8 million and $10 million, Andrietsch said the best estimate is now closer to $25 million.
Working on plans
School leaders are working with Pewaukee-based
VJS Construction Services and Milwaukee-based
Eppstein Uhen Architects (EUA) on what spaces to prioritize for renovation, but aren’t quite sure what those spaces will look like just yet, she said.
“That visioning is still continuing for the next several weeks,” Andrietsch added. “We've had a few surprises. I mentioned to a couple of people this morning, that it amazes me the difference in code compliance for higher ed versus K-12. We've got between $8 million and $10 million in just fire code sprinkling that has to be done to get the facility ready."
Efforts to open a new north side campus comes as Aug Prep has expanded the footprint of its south side campus; opening a newly constructed, 123,000-square-foot elementary school for K4-5th grade students this fall. The family opened the Christian education-based voucher school at 2607 S. 5th St., Milwaukee, in 2017.
The Ramirez Family Foundation acquired the 43.5-acre former Cardinal Stritch campus in Glendale and Fox Point in a $24 million deal in late July. Citing declining enrollment and significant financial problems, Cardinal Stritch decided to end its operations at the end of the 2022-23 school year.
Although plans aren’t yet determined for what a K-12 school at the campus might look like, Gus Ramirez has said that the foundation plans to raze some older dormitories on the campus – about 150,000 square feet of space – to make way for future athletic fields.
On Thursday, Andrietsch noted that there will likely be space on the campus for nonprofits to rent space. She said the school is being very thoughtful about what organizations may best fit those spaces as the school discusses ways to support future students and their families.
Staff and student recruitment
As it creates a vision for what a north side Aug Prep campus might look like, school leaders already have ambitious plans for how many students could be educated there.
The school has a goal of starting in the fall of 2025 with 315 students in grades K4-6
th and 9
th, with plans to expand in subsequent years to include more middle and high school grades.
“In over 10 years, we will grow to ultimately serve about 1,500 students (at the north side campus),” Andrietsch said. “Once combined with our south campus, we imagine serving almost 3,800 students by 2031-32 with 300 to 400 high school graduates. Can you imagine the impact on our city and community of those graduates on our world?”
One of the goals of the new campus, nestled in the affluent north shore, is to boost the number of tuition-paying students at the school. Currently, more than 90% of Aug Prep’s student body receives vouchers from the state.
Asked about efforts to recruit those private-pay students and also teachers, which are in short supply, Andrietsch said that while it is still very early on in the recruitment process, school leaders are already having conversations with community leaders and partners.
“We added 77 new staff this fall as we grew (the south side campus),” she said, noting that the school started the academic year 98% staffed.
“So, we will continue to press forward, always thinking about partners. We’ve already hired five former Cardinal Stritch employees, so we are hopeful that there may be more places for former Cardinal Stritch employees, especially as we open the new school,” Andrietsch said. “I'd love to see people that were teaching chemistry and calculus there be able to teach chemistry and calculus for our high school kids.”
As for finding students for the north side campus, which leaders are hoping will be a more diverse school than the south side campus, Andrietsch said Aug Prep already has about 200 students that live north of North Avenue that may opt to transfer to the north side campus when that becomes an option. School leaders have also been hosting a lot of meetings with community leaders, to help build grassroots relationships that can help outreach efforts.
The goal, she said, is not to build transactional partnerships, but to think about how Aug Prep can develop sustaining, trusted relationships with partners.
“That includes the north shore as well as the north side,” Andrietsch said.
