Bluffton’s Cross Schools opens new $4.2M high school building. Take a look
Cross Schools’ oldest students just got a major facilities upgrade.
The Bluffton private school held a grand opening for its new auxiliary high school building last week, giving ninth- and 10th-graders their own space, away from the school’s pre-K through eighth-grade students.
The new, $4.2 million building is three stories, with 13,500 square feet of finished space.
It includes six classrooms, administrative offices, a weight room and training facility, athletes’ lockers, an art studio, a music suite and a faculty lounge. It also has outdoor spaces where students can hang out and eat.
Work on the building began in spring of 2021, with Fraser Construction and PDG Architects of Hilton Head at the project’s helm.
“To be able to complete anything in the time we did with the current state of supply chain in Bluffton is amazing,” head of school Pete Laugen said Friday.
The new building is the latest expansion for Cross Schools, which completed construction of a 10,000-square-foot gym and a new school wing in 2019, and dedicated a new 500-seat chapel in 2020.
The school has also been adding one high school grade to its offerings each year; its current 10th-graders will be the school’s first graduating class in spring of 2024. Enrollment has grown from around 500 students in 2020-21 to 657 students.
“There’s a lot of pride in that for them,” said Kelly Williamson, the school’s director of marketing and development. “They know all the traditions they’re part of starting will be traditions for the school.”
Laugen said the school’s high schoolers are excited to have “a separate physical space.” Before the new building opened, the high school students were housed next to kindergarten, first-grade and middle school elective classrooms, and his office.
“They’ve received it really positively,” he said. “There’s a genuine desire to still be part of the Cross community in the coming years, but they want to feel like it’s a different experience.”
With the new building completed, Laugen is looking ahead to the next project: athletic fields that will host football, softball and soccer teams. He said the school is aiming to have those finished by fall of 2023, in time for Cross’ first senior class to use them.
