The State College Area (Pa.) district has opened a new building for its high school.
Nearly 2,300 students walked across the street from the school's North Building to the new building—the first phase of a three-phase overhaul of State College Area High School that will cost $137 million.
The second and third phases will demolish the rest of the existing South Building and most of the North Building. Early this spring, a new cafeteria will come online, and subsequent construction will finish the counseling office and library and build the Student Success Hub, and the performing arts and athletic centers.
The new building has more than 300,000 square feet of space. Its features include daylight in all rooms, uniform heat, an abundance of water bottle filling stations and restrooms, widespread interactive whiteboards and projectors, and other amenities of a modern building that the outdated North and South buildings lacked.
The Centre Daily Times reports that all construction is expected to be completed by the beginning of the 2019-20 school year. The educational space will exceed 600,000 square feet.
“We’re really excited to reach this point in the process,” Superintendent Bob O’Donnell says. “We still have a long way to go with the remainder of the project, about a year and a half, but we’re very excited for our students and faculty to move into updated spaces.”
O’Donnell says the design of the school included input from many voices in the educational community and one of the messages that came through was the lack of space designed to accommodate the diversity of programs offered by State High.
“We finally have a building that will match our prestige and pride that we have here at the high school,” Principal Curtis Johnson says. “We finally have a building that’s state of the art and technology facilities that will help us meet the needs of our students.”
Video from the State College Area district: Students Check Out New Building:
