COCONUT GROVE
St. Stephen's Episcopal Day School celebrates new building
St. Stephen's Episcopal Day School recently inaugurated its new Main Highway building. The project caused controversy a year ago because it replaced a historic chapel.
BY LAURA MORALES
LLMORALES@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Just over a year after breaking ground on a new building, St. Stephen's Episcopal Day School is ready to fill it with students and staff.
Last summer, St. Stephen's drew criticism for knocking down Miami's oldest standing church building to make way for more classrooms and some retail space.
That incident prompted the city's historic preservation department to tighten regulations on demolition of old structures.
Last week, the Coconut Grove church held an opening ceremony for its Main Highway Pavilion, which houses space for St. Stephen's day school and a retail building meant to create more revenue for the church.
The pavilion also provides a lab where students will be able to learn two new languages not previously offered by the school at 3439 Main Hwy.
The new facility includes four new classrooms on its first floor. They will house two sections each of pre-kindergarten and junior kindergarten classes, according to Pell Fender, the school's development director.
``Upstairs, we've got administrative offices and a faculty workroom,'' Fender said.
The school will continue to house about 300 students in grades pre-K through 5.
The new ``green'' building, the product of a 2005 process to plan the future of the school, also includes a computer lab with new equipment and a language lab offering lessons in Mandarin Chinese -- the world's most widely spoken native language -- as well as French and Spanish.
``Some schools have lessons like this as after-school programs, but this will be part of the students' weekly instruction at St. Stephen's,'' head of school Silvia Larrauri said Thursday.
Given China's economic and political influence in the world, growing numbers of schools are offering Mandarin programs. They include Somerset Academy in South Miami, Mandarin Lakes K-8 in Naranja and Southridge High in South Miami-Dade.
The school is seeking gold-level LEED certification for the new building, Larrauri said.
The pavilion's many windows provide lots of natural light, while a 3,000-gallon cistern on the roof catches rainwater to irrigate the landscaping.
``Many of the materials used in the construction are recyclable,'' Fender said.
Even though the original 1912 church was torn down last year amid protests from historians and preservationists, some of its elements have been incorporated in the pavilion.
The county's preservation board condemned the building's ``unnecessary destruction'' in a resolution last summer.
Protesters asked why the church described the old Mission-style building, which had been used for classes since the 1950s, as a ``classroom building'' in its demolition application.
The church moved into a new sanctuary on the site in 1959.
Church rector Wilifred Allen-Faiella said last year that the school did not specify the historic value of the building simply because the city didn't request it.
``We had no intent of misleading anyone'' as to the church's plans, she told The Miami Herald at the time.
In response to the demolition, the city tightened the rules making a review mandatory when someone applies to demolish a structure older than 50 years.
The new building includes the original1912 church bell and crucifix.
Local carpenter Rick Orgaz used some of the old church's Dade County pine trusses to make the benches scattered around the site.
A separate building houses an 800-square-foot ground-level retail space plus office space on top. Revenues from leasing the space will go to the church, which is looking for tenants
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/10/1818632/st-stephens-episcopal-day-school.html#ixzz14Fik7zfq
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