Midtown Little Rock commuters surely will have noticed that Little Rock’s Catholic High School for Boys has been undergoing steady renovation for the past couple of years, part of its first major capital campaign since the school moved to its current location in 1960.
Currently underway is construction of a 30,000-SF annex just north of the school’s football practice field. The campaign that is funding the project raised $15 million and last year paid for major classroom and gymnasium renovation and the addition of air conditioning in the main building.
Renowned for its old school ways under longtime principal Father George Tribou, who died in 2001, and now under current principal Steve Straessle, Catholic High didn’t have air conditioning in its main building until last year. A separate science building funded by CHS alum and San Francisco Forty Niners Chairman John York was built in 2000 and included AC, but the main building did not. (Catholic High boasts another NFL booster, of course: Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.)
The times, however, caught up to CHS, and the school added AC in the main building to accommodate technology, to the likely delight of current students and possible tongue-in-cheek consternation of alumni.
The latest component of Catholic High’s makeover is going up and visible to drivers on Father Tribou Drive between University and McKinley.
We’re told the new annex will include four or five state-of-the-art classrooms and new athletic facilities including locker rooms, coaches’ offices, a wrestling room and a state-of-the-art weight room. That’s phase one, and it should be complete by the opening day of school next year in mid-August. Phase two of the annex will include an expanded weight room and indoor practice facility.
The school, founded in downtown Little Rock in 1930, has roughly 750 students in grades nine-12.
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