The $35 million facility sits on the former campus of Mercy Hackley Hospital and is the first new school to be built in the Muskegon Public School District since 1959.
Superintendent Matthew Cortez says funding came from two bond measures passed by voters in the spring of 2020, which was at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
“It says that our community is ready to embrace hope and knows that Covid was just something that was going to be a temporary thing.”
The building will accommodate more than 900 sixth through eighth grade students when it opens for the school year this August, and boasts 45 academic classrooms, 6 science labs and dedicated floors for each grade, as well as other amenities.
“We have a double-A gymnasium as well as a complete track suspended in the air around the gymnasium. It’ll have a very large, up-to-date media center as well as a complete athletic complex 30 feet from the back of the building.”
The 15 acres the new building occupies was gifted to the district by Mercy Hackley Hospital after it moved to a new campus on East Sherman Boulevard.
“I couldn’t have asked for a stronger community or, personally, a better place for my son to be raised and for me to be a superintendent in.”
The school will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 2nd at 5:15 pm with the great-great-grandson of Charles Hackley in attendance. The public is welcome.
