Three area Catholic high schools are celebrating planned or recent expansion and renovation efforts aimed at providing students with facilities that will foster camaraderie, community, teamwork and leadership.
Projects at Resurrection College Prep and DePaul College Prep high schools focus on new or expanded and improved athletic facilities, while a planned addition at Fenwick High School includes athletic space along with dedicated areas for the arts and for school administration.
Leaders at the three schools see the investment in their school communities as emblematic of their commitment to the development of the whole person.
“We have, regardless of the founding sponsor, regardless of the sponsor’s charism, a lot of things in common,” said Richard Piwowarski, president of Resurrection College Prep. “One of them is a commitment to fully educate the person in front you. From that comes the commitment to provide the resources you need to do that.”
The schools needed the support of their communities to make all three projects happen. That support shows how important Catholic high schools are, said Mary Dempsey, president of DePaul Prep.
“Catholic high schools do a really great job, and Catholic high schools are really so important for the families of Chicago,” she said, adding that the work of Catholic schools benefits the whole area. “Our families have faith in us, they have faith in our future, they have faith in our mission.”
Fenwick High School: Building for the next century
Students at Fenwick High School in Oak Park will soon be welcomed into the building by walking through a green courtyard space, leading into a new dining hall and student union.
The new spaces are part of a planned 84,000-square-foot addition planned for the southwest corner of the campus. The addition will include a field house that will provide room for physical activity; a music hall with performance, rehearsal and storage space; visual arts studio space; and new administration offices and a large conference room that will serve as a boardroom.
The roof will accommodate a green area to be used for horticulture, solar facilities and outdoor gathering space.
“This is all about providing the space and the environment for our students to thrive,” said Fenwick President Otto Rutt, a 1979 alumnus and a retired Marine Corps colonel. “I couldn’t be more proud of our students: academics, athletics, activities, expressive arts, visual arts; their connection to faith, to each other, to our alumni community. Our students are involved and engaged and have such high esteem for each other.”
The addition, estimated to cost $50 million to $60 million, will be paid for with the school’s Centennial Campaign, which looks toward Fenwick’s centenary in 2029, Rutt said,
“We’re really refounding Fenwick for the next 100 years,” he said. “We’ve made a significant commitment for our whole community to really reset ourselves in a big bold way for the decades to come.”
The spaces that are being added for student use will foster engagement and community, he said.
The new dining hall will replace the old cafeteria, which is located in the basement and doesn’t have windows.
“We use the cafeteria space for quite a lot of activities,” Rutt said. “We needed one that is at ground level and that is something we can show off to all our family and friends.”
Both the new dining hall and student union space will give students space to gather with their classmates.
The new athletic and arts facilities will accommodate activities that the school offers.
“We’re always talking about the whole student and we want to have a lot of activity,” Rutt said.
Fenwick now has 31 sports and 50 activities, Rutt said, adding, “All of that takes space.”
While the new field house is not intended as a competition space, it will offer room for physical activity and practices. The arts spaces also will greatly expand the available facilities.
“When I was here in the ’70s, we had a music program and it was pretty small,” Rutt said. “Now I’m really proud of our expressive arts students, our music groups and our choral groups. We’re head and shoulders ahead of where we were when I was a student.”
Rutt said he especially is looking forward to seeing the new arts spaces. He earned a master’s degree in fine arts after leaving the service and specializes in printmaking, although he also paints and sculpts.
“We’ll have space that can be divided into three separate studios or one big studio,” he said. “As an artist myself, I’m really interested in that. Our art creative space will expand four times. It’s a significant investment for us for the visual arts.”
The addition will also replace the south facade of the school, now red brick, with a “collegiate Gothic”-style design that matches the other three sides of the building, Rutt said.
Construction will begin later this year and is expected to be completed by 2029, Rutt said.
DePaul Prep: “The last piece of the puzzle”
DePaul College Prep broke ground on its 74,600-square-foot athletic complex April 9.
The complex is “the last big piece of the puzzle,” said DePaul Prep President Mary Dempsey. It expected to open in the fall of 2027.
The school announced that it was moving to its campus at 3333 N. Rockwell Ave. in 2019, and since then has raised more than $59 million to renovate and expand a former DeVry University campus on the site.
The athletic complex will include a competition gym named for boys basketball coach Tom Kleinschmidt, a three-time winner of the Illinois state championship. Kleinschmidt also serves as DePaul Prep’s admissions director, Dempsey said, and the school chose to honor him for his leadership and mentoring and teaching skills as well as the accomplishments of his basketball teams, Dempsey said.
It also will have a field house that can be divided into three multisport courts, a banked upper-level track for practice with cardio equipment, a weight room and locker rooms.
The locker rooms are important, Dempsey said, as student athletes using the outdoor field have not had such facilities since the field was built in 2020. Indeed, for the past six years, DePaul has rented gyms all over the North Side for gym classes, practices and games.
The 1,100-seat competition court will also offer a space for the entire student body of more than 1,300 to gather for liturgies and other events, with additional seating on the floor, Dempsey said.
Now, when DePaul Prep wants to have Mass for students, it has three Masses in different locations simultaneously twice in the same day, she said.
Since 2019, DePaul Prep has renovated the east and west wings of the former DeVry building, added the south academic wing and built the outdoor stadium, Dempsey said. The athletic complex is the final piece, but it is just as important.
“Eighty-two percent of our students are involved in athletics, cocurricular activities or both,” Dempsey said. “Any time you get students involved in things beyond the classroom, if you can get them engaged in a cocurricular or athletics, that builds community.”
The school will continue seeking support from foundations, current and former school families and alumni, Dempsey said, as it still must raise $6 million of the complex’s $32 million price tag.
Resurrection College Prep: “Enkindle the possibility of what could be”
Resurrection College Prep, 7500 W. Talcott Ave., renovated its athletic center late last year, with a goal of designing a modern space to meet the needs of young women, including student athletes and those who are just discovering what sports or activities they like.
Resurrection President Richard Piwowarski said the $2.1 million renovation reflects the school’s commitment to “holistic formation.”
That means forming the whole person, and it applies to all students, not just the 70 percent of Resurrection students who participate in school-sponsored sports, Piwowarski said.
While many students arrive at the school with experience in sports, some haven’t been exposed to all the sports Resurrection offers, or to the different kinds of fitness regimens available to them, he said.
“What if she’s an athlete and hasn’t realized it yet?” Piwowarski said. “What if she really likes a certain kind of fitness discipline, but she doesn’t know about it yet? We want to enkindle the possibility of what could be.”
The multi-million dollar renovation at the all-girls’ school includes upgraded fitness and training areas tailored specifically for girls and women, along with modernized locker rooms, dedicated rooms for athletic training, film review and workshops to support both physical and mental preparation, reinforcing the idea that success is built through balance and discipline.
A new Jumbotron in the gymnasium will transform the game-day experience.
The new fitness center is double the size of the old one, and the locker rooms — including a new space for visiting teams — replace inadequate and outdated facilities.
He expected students to appreciate the better lighting in the locker rooms, the updated shower facilities, the new colors and finishes. What he’s found in the months since the facilities opened is an increased focus on the work they are doing.
“What I have noticed is the sudden increase in value they place on it,” Piwowarski said. “They are taking themselves more seriously. The space reflects what we are asking them to do, and that’s what they are doing.”