Michigan School Consolidates Campuses

CENTERBROOK, Conn. – University Liggett School, a prominent pre-Kindergarten through twelfth grade private school in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, has hired Centerbrook to integrate its Middle School, currently in a separate location, into its main Cook Road Campus. The 16-acre academic campus is organized around a 1928 building that earlier housed the oldest continually-operating independent school in the state. The site includes an adjacent 23 acres of athletic fields and a hockey arena. Liggett was founded in 1878.

With an enrollment of more than 550 students and growing, Liggett’s needs have evolved since its last major additions in the 1950s and 60s. Incremental changes to campus continued through the 1980’s, and in 2006 the school undertook a Master Plan to assess its current and future needs, indentifying much of the school building’s envelope, infrastructure, energy use, and teaching spaces as being in need of upgrading.

Liggett recently engaged Centerbrook to implement the first phase of the Master Plan by bringing the Middle School onto the main campus. Centerbrook’s design weaves the Middle School into the current school fabric through the creative re-use of existing buildings and some minor new construction. Care was taken in the planning to ensure that the Middle School students will have their own identifiable and carefully-scaled spaces within the larger campus.

Construction is underway and slated to be completed for the 2012-2013 academic year. Mark Simon, FAIA, is the Centerbrook Partner-in-Charge and Hank Altman, AIA, is the Project Manager.