Cristo Rey Philadelphia High School looked to renovate an abandoned warehouse into their new 90,000 SF high school. The new, seven acre campus includes dining halls, science labs, a gym and athletic field and parking. Bala was chosen to perform the design engineering for this $40 million project.
The renovation of the existing warehouse added 50,000 SF to the space. The new addition includes classrooms, administration spaces, a two story gymnasium with two full court basketball courts and a fitness center. The project also featured a new outdoor sports field, which Bala’s Technology Group is designed to have power and wifi accessibility.
The entire campus is conditioned using a new 300-ton closed-circuit cooling tower and 1,500 MBH boiler delivering water to the terminal water-source heat pumps through a two-pipe system. The full-service kitchen is utilizing Type-I and Type-II exhaust and each science lab have special fume hood exhaust fans for experiments.
The school is the first school to open in the Tioga neighborhood of Philadelphia in almost 100 years.