Athletic facility breaks ground at choir school

Courtesy image/ Sparano Mooney Architecture

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This rendering depicts what the new field house/early childhood education center on The Madeleine Choir School campus will look like when it is complete.

SALT LAKE CITY — Construction has begun on a new field house/early childhood education center on The Madeleine Choir School campus. The 16,900-square-foot athletic facility and pre-kindergarten center is being built in the campus’ northeast corner. This building has been part of the school’s strategic plan for the last five years. School officials began actively pursuing the project two years ago, said Gregory Glenn, the school’s pastoral administrator.

At the Aug. 22 groundbreaking ceremony, Bishop Oscar A. Solis offered up a prayer and blessed the site. Afterwards, Bishop Solis, members of the clergy and benefactors symbolically turned over the soil on the new construction.

“We have a wonderful campus here at the choir school, but the one thing we do not have is an athletic facility, and our prekindergarten facilities are in historic homes that really aren’t suited for the purpose of education,” Glenn said. “So, this project provides for us an early childhood education center for our PreK, and then it also provides us with a full-size gymnasium and a P.E./rehearsal studio. It’s really going to provide what we need for our physical education curriculum and for athletic events and other gatherings of the school.”

The new facility, which is being built by Okland Construction, will also give students a place to exercise when there are Red Air Days or inclement weather, and provide a performance space as well, Glenn said. It will also include three classrooms and bathrooms.

The architect, Nate King of Sparano Mooney Architecture, worked with city officials and landmark commission members to ensure that the building would fit in with the historic Avenues District. The $12.5 million building will be composed of masonry — cinder block and brick — with colored glass around the upper exterior. The color scheme is based on the Annunciation window in the Cathedral of the Madeleine “because we wanted to make a connection between the cathedral and the school,” Glenn said.

“It’s really hard to build a gymnasium in a historic landmark district; the city was so tough on us,” he added. “They’ve done a really good job of designing a building that doesn’t look like a big box.”

The site for the new building was formerly part of the school’s playground. School officials considered the possibility of a rooftop playground to replace the space that is being lost, but the idea was prohibitively costly, Glenn said.

The project is already under way and is expected to take a year. Although construction will take place while school is in session, no deliveries will be allowed during school drop off or pick up times to ensure students’ safety, Project Manager Mario Puente said.

More than $10.5 million of the building’s cost was donated by school benefactors. Fundraising efforts are continuing to raise the rest of the money.