A new look for an old campus: St. Augustine Preparatory Academy breaks ground at former Cardinal Stritch University
The new look for the old Cardinal Stritch University site in Fox Point and Glendale is becoming clearer, as St. Augustine Preparatory Academy broke ground Wednesday for its new North Campus, which will serve students in 4-year-old kindergarten through 12th grade.
The school is scheduled to open in fall 2026 with just over 300 students. Officials estimate it will take about seven years after the school opens to reach its desired capacity of over 1,000 students. The school plans to start with grades 4K through six and nine, then add grades each year until it becomes a full 4K-12 school.
Plans for the school call for STEM labs, music and fine arts spaces. Its athletic facilities will include a new fieldhouse, turf soccer field and an outdoor track. It will also include facilities "for college and career readiness, and health care for students and families," said a news release from the school.
Funding for the school has mostly come from Gus and Becky Ramirez, who founded the school's original South Campus, which opened in 2017. The new school is projected to cost $100 million, including the purchase of the former university property. About $25 million is expected to be raised by the community; of that amount, over $12 million has already been raised. The Ramirez family has pledged to cover the remaining costs.
St. Augustine Prep president Matthew Miller said the former Cardinal Stritch fine arts building will serve as the high school, while a building that housed the former university's library will host the kindergarten through eighth-grade school. He said the high school will have a 12,000-square-foot commons, cafeteria, kitchen space and bathrooms. The K-8 building will house athletic facilities that both schools will use.
So far, Miller said, the majority of the work that's been done has been demolition and planning, which he said has been ongoing since November. He said the school should have final plans by mid-December.
After the Ramirez family bought the former university property in July 2023 for $24 million, the costs of renovations "far exceeded what was viable for older building structures," according to a February news release from the school. Because of that, the school planned to demolish several existing buildings dating back to the 1960s and renovate the university's existing gym, library, campus center and fine arts building, the release said.
Gus Ramirez said during a speech before Wednesday's groundbreaking that they decided to take down about 60% of the campus.
"When you walk the campus today or see it today where you see this pile of concrete and rocks, etc., that's the 60% that was done," he said.
Miller is excited about the size of the new campus. Having 43 acres is "huge," he said.
"On our south side campus, we're only on 13 acres and we currently serve 2,200 (students) out of that size space. So the opportunity to serve a diverse population on the north side of Milwaukee, in the north suburbs, is fantastic for a lot of different kids," Miller said.
Ramirez said it was gratifying to see the number of people who came to the groundbreaking in support of what the school was doing.
"Abby (Andrietsch, Ramirez's daughter and St. Augustine Preparatory Academy Prep CEO) and her team have done a fabulous job leading the school on the south side, and they've taken on a big project," Ramirez said. "Not the most timely time to take it on, but God has a way, and he's opened up doors for us. We're really pleased at the progress."
Andrietsch said it is "really powerful" to connect Cardinal Stritch's legacy with what the new school will be.
"If I think, I guess it would be three big things that connect us; it's that unapologetic Jesus-centered, the faith that's on the background; it would be the student-centered focus and Cardinal Stritch — their legacy also included the diversity of community, which we're also looking to build here as well on the K to 12 side of things," she said. "Those three things, in so many ways, are part of the legacy that's the foundation of what we're launching from as we grow and build our own school."
(This story was updated to change or add a photo or video.)
Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or . at .
