TRENTON — The “Trenton Times” sign still sits atop its former headquarters on Perry Street, but the once-dilapidated newspaper building has been transformed into a brightly colored school.
The International Academy of Trenton Charter School will welcome its students at its new location Thursday.
The academy, part of the SABIS network of schools, opened in September 2014. It now has about 550 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, but plans to add a grade each year as it gradually expands to a high school.
In its first year, the school was located in the former Blessed Sacrament school on Bellevue Avenue. The following year, to accommodate the addition of fourth grade, it moved to the former St. Mary’s school on N. Chancery Lane. This year, the school was split between the two sites.
“It’s been such a challenge … but going from one school in two locations to a unified group is going to be wonderful for communication and collaboration,” said Jay Kamau, the school’s director. “We’re really excited to be in a new building with a lot of space and opportunities to grow.”
HighMark School Development, a Utah-based company that specializes in buying and redeveloping locations for charter schools, bought the 80,000-square-foot building for $1.3 million in 2015. The school is leasing the building, but will eventually have the option to buy.
The cavernous building was already in serious disrepair when the Times moved out in 2011 and sold the 6-acre property to PerTrent Properties LLC.
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HighMark and the general contractor, Hollister Construction Services, salvaged the exterior, but gutted the interior to create a bright, airy layout.
Tim Cameron, school startup and operations coordinator for SABIS, says the Bellevue and Chancery campuses are aging buildings that don’t meet the school’s modern education needs. The classrooms are small, storage is hard to come by and there are plumbing and other upkeep issues.
“Leasing a space from someone else, we couldn’t always do what we wanted to do to implement our system,” he said. “We could only work within the constraints … but having our own building, we were able to design it ourselves and work with HighMark to make it fit what we need.”
The renovated building has 35 regular-sized classrooms, including art and music rooms, 10 smaller classrooms for English language learner and special education students, interactive whiteboards, a computer lab, gymnasium, cafeteria and a teachers lounge.
The walls are painted yellow, green, blue and purple and on the second floor, which has the classrooms for the older students, colorful lockers line the halls.
Outside, there is an expanse of blacktop for recess activities and later in the spring, a jungle gym will be installed for the younger students.
As the project inched closer to completion, Kamau shared pictures of the progress with the students.
“They’re oohing and ahhing over the place,” he said. “The smallest things like lockers, they appreciate. They’re pumped up and excited.”
IAT had hoped to move in over winter break, but there were some delays with the elevators and getting the certificates of occupancy, Cameron said.
The next few days will be a whirlwind as finishing touches are made and everything is moved in.
Cameron says that by summer 2018, the school will likely start planning the second phase to accommodate the high school.
For now, that part of the building remains unfinished but when complete, it will house more classrooms, a science lab, an interactive testing lab and another gymnasium.
“We were trying to find a building that was large enough to house the K-12 so we didn’t have to add on too many additions,” Cameron said. “The Trenton Times is such a historic building in the city — it just was the right place for us.”
Cristina Rojas may be reached at crojas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @CristinaRojasTT. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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