Middletown’s Xavier High School is breaking ground in March on nearly $8 million in upgrades to its fine-arts and outdoor athletics facilities in the initial phases of its five-year, multi-million-dollar capital improvement campaign.
The project leads what is the biggest capital-improvement campaign in the 50-year history of the all-male Catholic high school at 181 Randolph Road, said Matt Strekel, a Xavier alum (Class of ’99), who is advancement director and principal fundraiser.
When completed around April 2015, the approximately $3.7 million, two-story fine-arts wing’s first floor will house a chemistry lab and a fine-arts classroom. The second story will accommodate rehearsal rooms, Strekel said.
The wing also will link the high school’s St. Joseph’s Hall dining/academics building to the residence of the Xaverian Brothers, the religious order running the school that has 800 pupils and 100 faculty and staff.
The $4 million in athletic upgrades, set for September completion, include a new baseball facility, with new dugouts, batting cages and bullpens. In addition, the existing varsity field will be covered in synthetic turf. An aging, six-lane running track encircling the field, too, will be resurfaced.
Northeast Collaborative Architects in Middletown designed the fine-arts building, with SMRT Inc. of Andover, Mass., handling design chores for the athletic facility.
Simsbury’s Newfield Construction is construction manager.
Renowned in Connecticut sports circles for its pupils’ athletic prowess, Xavier also boasts a cadre of students unafraid to explore their creative sides, Strekel said. Many of its pupils regularly participate in fine-arts beyond the school’s minimum classroom requirements.
Indeed, a number of Xavier’s estimated 8,200 graduates worldwide have showcased their fine-arts skills in exhibitions and performances locally, in New York City and beyond, Strekel said.
When Xavier’s strategic planners were plotting the school’s future, a new fine-arts facility was included.
“We identified it as a need,” Strekel said.
The $8.5 million capital campaign began quietly in July 2012 before being publicly trumpeted last September, Strekel said. It ends June 2017.
The Diocese of Norwich launched Xavier and all-girls Mercy High School in 1963. Xavier and Mercy shared facilities their first year, until Mercy’s campus bowed a year later, Strekel said.
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$800K Hfd. sale
An industrial building in Hartford’s South Meadows sold at $800,000.
South Meadows No. 10 LLC bought the 24,900-square-foot building on 3.7 acres at 445 Ledyard St. from The Fitger Co LLC.
O,R&L Commercial brokered the sale.
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Canton retail center adds
The Shoppes at Farmington Valley has signed one new culinary tenant and will see an existing ice-cream shop double its footprint in the Canton shopping center.
O’Live A Little Specialty Gourmet, purveyor of gourmet pastas and olive oils, will open this spring in the open-air retail center.
This will be the second location for Connecticut culinary entrepreneurs Matthew and Jennifer Ostrowski. Their other store is in The Promenade Shops at Evergreen Walk in South Windsor.
Meantime, a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream store in the center since 2005 is doubling from 870 to 1,637 square feet. More customer seating is part of the expansion.
With the new lease and planned expansion, Shoppes at Farmington Valley boasts an approximately 98 percent occupancy for its 413,000 square feet of leasable space.
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Greg Seay is the Hartford Business Journal News Editor.
