Work is progressing steadily on North Cross School’s $16.5 million makeover, one that will help create what Board of Trustees Chairman Fourd Kemper calls “one of the premier independent schools in Virginia.”
North Cross, founded in 1944 in Salem and expanded in 1961 with Eaton and Wellington Schools, has seen renovations to its campus on U.S. 419 in the past, but nothing like this one, which was designed by Balzer & Associates and is being put together by M&B Contractors.
The school—K-12—has 495 students in nine buildings on 77 acres. It has a faculty of 60. All of its students go to college, according to its website.
Construction has been going on for a while, but intensified when students broke for the summer in early June, eliminating a considerable number of parking spaces (North Cross’s Carter Center is still being used daily for fitness training by the public) and closing off much of the school permanently to any traffic at all.
Major renovation is taking place at Willis Hall, built in 1985, and the access road to the center of the campus is being reimagined as a pedestrian walkway. The high school and lower school are being joined into a single, large unit.
When students return to campus after Labor Day, much of the work will be completed and the campus they left will be considerably upgraded, though the finished project will still be a year away.
The construction (financed primarily through a capital campaign) should be finished in the fall of 2020, allowing another full summer of intense work. It includes a new library, student center, expanded classroom space for the remediation program, renovated theater and administrative suite.
For now, work is continuing at a furious pace.
About the Writer:
Dan Smith is an award-winning Roanoke-based writer/author/photographer and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame (Class of 2010). His blog, fromtheeditr.com, is widely read and he has authored seven books, including the novel CLOG! He is founding editor of a Roanoke-based business magazine and a former Virginia Small Business Journalist of the Year (2005).
