Sewickley Academy Begins $3.2 Campus Improvement Project

  is beginning a project intended to make better and safer use of its 16-acre campus.

Approximately 740 students in grades pre-K through 12 attend the academy. School and Edgeworth officials kicked off the first phase of its $3.2 million project with a recent groundbreaking ceremony. Grading work behind Hansen Library now is underway to make room for 36 parking spaces.

Mandi Semple, Sewickley Academy’s director of public relations, said the improvement project -- part of its “Picture This” campaign -- will “make the campus better for students and safer for students.”

“We will have everything done and ready to go for the start of school in August,” Semple said.

Behind Hansen Library, contractors have razed trees and two houses on Hazel Lane to make way for parking. The lot is expected to be open by the time school resumes after spring break in late March.

 “We will have everything done and ready to go for the start of school in August,” Semple said.

The addition of more green space in front of Hansen Library is one of several projects in the first-phase, which also includes a bus turnaround, additional parking, and a renovated Lower School courtyard. The project has been scaled back a bit from the original plans to cut down on costs, Semple said, but it still includes changes that officials at the private school believed to be most crucial.

Right now, Semple said, students can't kick around a soccer ball in front of the library, where a parking lot is located. A portion of that parking will be eliminated from thearea outside the library’s front doors and will become green space where students may play or hang out.

The bus turnaround will redirect traffic from the front of the school to the back. Grading will begin this month behind Lower School for the bus loop. Work on the green space will start last.

“We’re waiting to start anything in the middle of campus until school ends,” Semple said.