TOLEDO, Ohio — A project Toledo School for the Arts staff have been working on for the past three years is almost complete.
Some of the new renovations happening on the second floor at TSA include larger classrooms and a new cafeteria that isn't located in the basement. The school raised $9.4 million to make this happen.
Interim director Rob Koenig said none of this would be possible without the support from the community and friends of the school.
"Yes, it took a number of years to raise the money, but I think when they come here and they see what the end result is, I think they're going to be [impressed]," he said.
Although it's still under a bit of construction, students will be starting off the school year in an updated building.
"We hope it's going to be real exciting for students to see the changes.," artistic director David Saygers said. "The stairwell has always been a place where it kind of bunches up and is a little too tight, so it's going to be really nice that they can move around the building much more freely. We have a whole new stairwell added."
The new stairwell is possible thanks to the school purchasing the rest of the second floor from the previous owner. With that comes creating room for 140 more students in the future. "Future" being the keyword.
"We think it'll be too much of an impact to the student environment to suddenly have 140 new students," Koenig said. "Our expectation is that since we've routinely had pretty long waiting lists in all the grades, we will be successful in recruiting a number of new students coming for next fall."
This project might have been three years in the making, but staff is hoping the morale it'll bring will last a lifetime.
"We think that it's the kind of energizing effect or impact that could really get the students excited about school," Koenig said.
Contractors have assured school staff the renovations will be complete by the first day of school, which is Sept. 6.
Construction on the Black Box Performance Space will begin in April 2023.
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