Ground has been broken on the first phase of the new THRIVE Academy campus at 3585 Brightside Lane, and the charter boarding school serving at-risk students has released detailed renderings and site plans of the campus.
In the first phase of construction, which got underway Thursday and is being done by The Lemoine Company, workers will build one of the two planned dormitories. A second dorm, main school building and athletics center will be built at a later date, but those facilities are not expected to be ready when school opens next year, says Executive Director Sarah Broome.
THRIVE is currently housed in the Family and Youth Services Center on Government Street near Interstate 110. The school currently teaches 110 students in the sixth through ninth grades. Next year, there will be 160 students in the sixth through 10th grades. The goal is to eventually bring in 350 students in the sixth through 12th grades at the new campus, Broome says.
The original plan was to build the campus all at once, but hiccups with financing forced Broome to switch to building the campus in phases. Broome filed a new construction plan earlier this month with the city-parish Planning Commission, which will vote on the application at its Dec. 14 meeting.
The first phase of construction is expected to be completed by the start of the next school year. Broome says she hopes to have the campus completely finished in three years, depending on financing.
See the renderings and site plans of THRIVE Academy campus by Antunovich Associates.
