De La Salle North Catholic High School in Portland, Ore., has broken ground on its new campus.
The new building is scheduled to open in fall 2021 and will be the first new Catholic high school campus in Portland in more than 50 years.
School officials say they have met their core campus fundraising goal of $20.5 million, and have $2.7 million left to raise in order to build a gymnasium, the first in the school’s history.
The new campus will have state-of-the-art science labs, a visual arts center and a high school competition gym for basketball and volleyball teams.
The science classrooms will accommodate both technology-based and hands-on labs to provide a greater variety of experiential learning in physics, biology and chemistry.
The visual arts center will enable students to explore painting, drawing, ceramics, printmaking, photography and design, with direct access to a courtyard for outdoor instruction.
De La Salle, which opened in 2001, now has 280 students; the new campus will accommodate more than 350 students. It is a member of the Cristo Rey Network.
The school program is a combination of college-preparatory education paired with a corporate work study program in which students work one day a week at professional work sites, offsetting 50% of the cost of their education.
The architect for the new campus is Bora Architects, and the builder is P&C Construction.
