$18m school design are unveiled in NJ

Real Estate Weekly, May 19, 2004

As part of ah educational renaissance in Camden, city, residents attended a presentation of design plans for a new $18 million Early Childhood Development Center by New Jersey Schools Construction Corporation, the Camden Board of Education, Don Todd Associates of Cherry Hill, the project management firm, and the Hillier Group, a Princeton architectural firm.

The new ECDC is one of a total of $437 million in new school projects SCC has on tap for the Camden School District over the next several years.

Also, in Camden alone, SCC already has completed nearly $26 million in health and safety upgrades at 33 schools. SCC is fully funding and managing these projects in the city school district of Camden County as part of the state's unprecedented $8.6 billion school construction program.

The new 81,800 s/f ECDC at Pine and Magnolia streets in the city's Parkside section will provide 21st century educational opportunities for 444 pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten students. It will specialize in teaching special needs children from the entire Camden School District.

It will include 37 classrooms, 10 small-group-instruction rooms, a gym, media center, cafeteria, art room, music room, physical therapy room, playground and office space.

Parking facilities at the school also will support the nearby Camden School District Studio, Forest Hills Elementary School and a community park. An existing facility at the same site was razed to make way for construction of the new ECDC, which is expected to be completed by fall 2006.

The session was the third of three community presentations this month for new school projects in Camden.