Thank you for your prayers and support over this past year as Salpointe Catholic has been recovering from the arson fire of July 17, 2022. The fire completely destroyed our 700 English building. Today, we are able to share good news: we have reached a claim settlement with Christian Brothers Services, our long time insurance broker. 

Salpointe is a resilient community. Soon after the fire, we decided to turn this adversity into opportunity and build for the future, not the past. Our city-approved Planned Area Development allows Salpointe to build a second story and we will take advantage of this option. We will build a home for our transformational Wellness Center, an integrative program that will focus on the most important six dimensions of wellness for high school students: spiritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, social and environmental. And we will construct eleven state-of-the-art classrooms so that every teacher at Salpointe has his/her own classroom.

Seaver Franks Architects, led by Rick Huch ‘87, designed the new building and Lloyd Construction Company, Inc., has been awarded the construction contract. The total Guaranteed Maximum Price of the project is $7.3M plus $400K for furniture, fixtures and equipment for a total cost of $7.7M. Over the past year we raised $4.5M from generous donors who believe in Salpointe’s mission and bright future. With the insurance settlement of $3.2M and the fundraising of $4.5M, we have reached our goal of $7.7M. We are ready to move forward, raze the burned structure and start construction. 

Here are the steps that we will take in conjunction with Lloyd Construction to assure the safety of our students, employees and neighbors over the next several months:

1. Clean up: Debris such as charred desks, chairs, whiteboards, etc. will be removed by Southwest Hazard.
2. Testing: Terracon Consultants, Inc. will inspect the building for any hazardous air quality or materials that will inform the remediation, removal and demolition process.
3. Electrical work: Cornerstone Electrical Contractors, LLC, will “make safe” the building to assure that the structure is electrically safe for demolition.
4. Demolition: RCD Demolition, LLC, will raze the building completely.
5. Site preparation for new construction will begin. 

This process should take between 12 and 14 months. Our plan is to dedicate the new facility in December of 2024 and be ready for students and faculty/staff to occupy the new classrooms and wellness center in January 2025.

Thank you for your patience. We never thought that the insurance settlement would take fifteen months; however, we are relieved that a reasonable settlement has been reached. Now we ask for your patience once again as we move forward with the demolition and construction. The process will be disruptive and we will do everything in our power to minimize the impact on teaching and learning. We will keep you posted as we move forward.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Ernie Duarte at eduarte@salpointe.org, Ardemis Martin at amartin@salpointe.org or me at ksullivan@salpointe.org.

Gratefully,

Kay Sullivan, President   
Ardemis Martin, Principal   
Ernie Duarte, Chief Operations/Finance Officer