Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
October 16, 2002
New high school plan also benefits other inner-city schools
By Jack Bacon
The sale of former Cathedral/Central Catholic High School at East 18th Avenue and Logan Street will be a boon to the inner-city schools of the Archdiocese of Denver, Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., said.
The $6 million sale is under contract, but has not been closed.
The archbishop, who described the proposed sale for an innovative new Jesuit high school as a "win-win situation," said the funds due are tremendously important.
"The funds from this sale are critical in addressing health and safety issues in our six existing inner-city elementary schools," he said. "There are roofs that leak, deteriorating staircases, boilers that need to be replaced. Every penny will be well spent.
"Cathedral Parish — which has operated right in the heart of the inner city for 90 years — also needs resources to address its ongoing maintenance."
Nancy Walla, president of the Catholic Foundation for the archdiocese, said the sale would help another Catholic school, too.
"Some of those resources are very much needed to pay down the debt on the new Bishop Machebeuf High School," Walla said. "We've doubled the number of students who can attend the school by moving it to a larger site in Denver. That's been a wonderful success, but building schools is expensive. This debt reduction will permit us to continue to focus our resources on our inner-city schools."
The Cathedral High School site, Central Catholic High School in its latter years, once was considered for Machebeuf's new location, but a blue-ribbon committee that studied the proposal in 1998 found that a survey of parents preferred the new site chosen on the former Lowry Air Force Base. It then moved from its original location in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood.
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