St. Mary's High School Update

I previously posted some photos of the site where St. Mary's high school plans an expansion to accommodate their new athletic fields. The property is at South Spring Avenue and Itaska. St. Mary's High School is a 4701 S. Grand Blvd.

There was an update on this development in the South City Journal. Highlights from the story include:

1. St. Mary's acquired 6.1 acres of property at the west end of their campus for athletic fields. The property was owned by the Archdiocese until the 1960's when they sold it. Someone developed some hideously designed apartment complexes (St. Michael's Apartments).


2. Recently these apartment buildings were used by the fire department to do classes and practice in training fire fighters.


3. These 1970's/1980's looking buildings will be demolished, expected to be completely down by early January.


4. The new baseball, soccer, tennis and shotput areas will allow the high school's athletics to be on campus, where they are currently using Heine Meine in South County.

This is great news for the south side! Not only will this area be much improved, it looks like the all boy's private HS will be investing even more in it's city campus.

According to the story in the journal, they are launching a $8.5M fundraising campaign which includes the $4.5M for the fields, $0.5M for a center for applied sciences, $0.75M for synthetic turf for the fields, $1.5M for general improvements including A/C, and finally $1M for tuition assistance endowment.

That's a lot of money to invest into this south city property. It looks like St. Mary's high school plans to be here for awhile. They are great neighbors.