St. Marcus Lutheran School on Thursday celebrated the groundbreaking of a 40,000-square-foot expansion project at its second campus, located at 2669 N. Richards Street in Milwaukee.
The project will enable St. Marcus to grow its student body at the campus to more than 400 students in grades K3-8. Once the project is complete, the school will serve more than 1,120 students at its two campuses. Its original campus is located at 2215 N. Palmer Street in Milwaukee, four blocks south of the second campus.
St. Marcus is a high-performing voucher school that offers its students what it describes as “cradle to college” programming in addition to health resources, information on disease prevention and religious programming for its students and their families.
St. Marcus acquired its second campus last December. The school purchased the 13,000-square-foot building from the Council for the Spanish Speaking, Inc. for $460,075, according to city records.
The 40,000-square-foot addition represents phase one of what could be a three-phase construction project, according to Christine Safranek, director of mission advancement at the school, and Sara Roemer, director of communications.
St. Marcus hopes to complete phase one by next August. The initial phase will feature four floors with at least eight classrooms, an art room, a music and dance room, a library, special education space, small group instruction space and room for offices.
The school will pour about $9 million into phase one with funds coming from its $18.8 million “Courage to Commit” campaign, started in July 2014.
Milwaukee-based Rinka Chung Architecture is serving as the project architect, and Milwaukee-based Catalyst Construction is serving as the school’s construction partner.
School officials are still configuring the specifics of the project’s second and third phases, according to Safranek.
