Construction on New Texas High School to Begin

ALTON, Texas — Construction on a new Mission Collegiate High School (MCHS) campus in Alton, Texas is expected to begin July 1. If construction goes as planned, the new school building will be completed next summer in time for students to move in for the 2015-2016 school year.
The temporary MCHS campus began serving students two years ago. Since then, students have been attending the school in portable classrooms located on the grounds of Mission High School (MHS) as well as sharing some of the MHS facilities such as the library and cafeteria. While the situation has not been ideal for students, it allowed the school to serve students while the district figured out a location for the permanent campus and for Hidalgo, Texas-based EGV Architects to design a new facility.
The $13.6 million campus will be built on land the district already owned within close proximity to Alton Memorial Jr. High School and Cavazos Elementary School. The project proposals from EGV Architects were due April 30, according to project architect Eddie Vela.
“Due to the fact that MCHS uses an Early College High School academic design that is based on smaller student numbers, we are able to maximize the usage of land the district already owned,” said Ricardo López, superintendent of the district, in a statement. “As an Early College High School, MCHS will serve up to 600 students, many of whom will actually take courses at South Texas College their last two years at the school. That means the campus does not need the same facilities as a traditional high school campus.”
When completed, the 74,485-square-foot MCHS campus will feature 21 regular classrooms, four laboratories and two computer laboratories. The campus entrance will be located between Alton Jr. High School and Cavazos Elementary School. The school will expand to include grades 9-11 for the coming school year. However, it will house all four high school grade levels 9-12 when the new campus opens in 2015.