New $34M Private School Planned on 60 Acres

The development has earned rezoning approval from the city, and is now set to push for final site approval. The Rev. Richard Elmer, the president of the private school, said he hopes construction will begin in July, and the new building would open in the late summer of 2005. The school will take up 20 acres of the property, and the rest will be left for open space, Elmer said.

The high school opened back in 1928 at Harper and Woodward Avenue in Detroit. It moved twice in the city, then shifted to its current 28-acre site in Redford, MI, in a former junior high school building. About 1,100 teens currently attend the school."We spent about 25 years in the junior high, which was seen only as temporary quarters," Elmer told GlobeSt.com. "It was never meant to be permanent."

Now, a local developer has donated the 60-acre parcel of land for the new school at Grand River and Wixom Road. Frank Pellerito of Lakeside Oakland Development Co. gave up the land, worth more than $8 million.He did not return a call for comment.

Elmer said the school has raised about $26 million of the construction cost. He said he did not want to raise the $6,250 enrollment fee to help build the new complex."We want to keep a social-economic diverse student body," Elmer said. "A few parents wouldn't be able to afford a higher rate."

There have been questions about the school's move away from Detroit, where it was founded, and into the affluent suburbs. Elmer said the school is just moving with the students.„Most of our constituency has shifted north and west,‰ Elmer said. „We‚re just following our customers.‰