The Chester Charter School for the Arts, the top-performing school in Delaware County’s poorest community, will soon move to a new, state-of-the-art $25 million campus that is being built on a vacant lot on Highland Avenue.

Administrators and civic leaders recently broke ground for the 90,000-square-foot building with dance studios, a band room, and a kiln, writes Kathy Boccella for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The construction is slated to be completed by the fall of 2017.

According to Boccella, CCSA has 500 students in grades K-9 and 56 staff. Administrators say the move should enable the school to become a full K-12 by 2018, with 750 eventually enrolled.

Funding for the new campus includes a $1 million anonymous donation from a Swarthmore alumnus. Other Swarthmore-connected donors have contributed to a $7 million philanthropic fund drive. Much of the rest of the construction will be financed with low-interest, tax-exempt bonds through the Reinvestment Fund, a quasi-state agency.

In the first phase of the project, a three-story classroom wing with high-tech science labs, dance studios, and a full cafeteria with a performing stage will be completed. The second phase will include a theater and gymnasium.

Administrators say they hope that in a third phase, perhaps five years away, the school will further expand for an anticipated influx of students.

“Planning for the big move went forward even as CCSA and the district’s other charter schools were clashing with state and district officials over funding issues, such as reimbursement for teaching special-needs students,” writes Boccella.

At the groundbreaking, touted the forthcoming campus as “a beautiful school for Chester’s children so one day they will grow up and make the world a more beautiful place.”

Click here to read more about the new Chester Charter School for the Arts in the Philadelphia Inquirer.