The Milwaukee Rescue Mission is seeking to purchase five properties from the city to expand its Cross Trainers Academy near North 15th and West Center streets.
Acquiring the properties would make room for a building connecting the current school building at the corner of 15th and Center with the former Boys and Girls Club building to the north, according to city documents. The proposed site plan also includes additional parking space, an athletic field and paved play areas.
Pat Vanderburgh, Milwaukee Rescue Mission president, said the expansion fits the organization’s vision for the school which includes adding grades and sections.
“When we’re filed out and built out, I think in about eight years, we’ll have about 500 students,” he said.
Vanderburgh added MRM is hoping the school will serve as an anchor for its other outreach efforts in the Lindsay Heights neighborhood, including potential hosting adult education and job training.
Milwaukee Rescue Mission would pay the city $2,500 for the properties, which cover a total of 31,075 square feet. The organization already acquired five other private parcels in the area. MRM moved the Cross Trainers Academy to the site in 2015.
Cross Trainers Academy operates as a choice school and has approximately 200 students in pre-kindergarten through ninth grade. Milwaukee Rescue Mission also operates a day-care center at the site for children ages four weeks to four years old.
The project will be completed in phases with the first focused on adding parking, followed by the new building and finally the play areas. Milwaukee Rescue Mission worked with Plunkett Raysich Architects on building and site design and construction will be done by Catalyst Construction.
