John A. Shaw Elementary School, designed by New Orleans architect E.A. Christy in 1939, will be renovated, not demolished. The Lens reports that ENCORE Academy, a charter school currently based Uptown, will take over the St. Roch neighborhood school. Shaw was yanked from the Orleans Parish School Board auction block in August after ENCORE expressed interest in the building (charter schools get first dibs) and their $135K bid for the property was accepted. The historic school was pretty wrecked from the flooding after Hurricane Katrina, then suffered a fire years later, but, miraculously, the building is still structurally sound. The Arts Street campus consists of three buildings, totaling just over 40,000-square feet. The $4.9M project does call for demo'ing one of the buildings and adding a 4,000-square foot performance center.
· ENCORE looking to renovate 7th Ward building [The Lens]
· A map of historic New Orleans school buildings up for auction [Curbed NOLA]
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