St. Marcus Lutheran School Friday released a plan to renovate the vacant Malcolm X Academy property as a campus for 900 students even though the building’s owner, Milwaukee Public Schools, rejected St. Marcus’ attempt to buy the property and has other plans for it.
Milwaukee Public Schools officials instead plan to convert the building at 2760 N. First St. into a community resource center. The Milwaukee Board of School Directors on Tuesday will consider whether to approve that other use. The community center, which would open in fall 2014, would have education, recreational and other programs for the neighborhood.
“We have been planning for the future of this property since the development of our Facilities Master Plan in 2011,” Tony Tagliavia, MPS spokesman, wrote in an emailed statement. “This is nothing new. The Board has been working on the concept of Community Resource Centers in unused buildings for about a year.”
The Malcolm X Academy, under St. Marcus’ concept, would instead be renovated for 600 private kindergarten through eighth-grade students and 300 children in an early development center. It would be the second campus for St. Marcus.
St. Marcus Superintendent Henry Tyson said the school made public a plan for the Malcolm X Academy to start a public discussion of its proposal. In regard to reaching out to MPS, he said their response in December or January to an initial bid to buy the property “was so definitive it didn’t appear as though that would be a fruitful approach.”
“Our next steps are to continue to engage in conversations first and foremost with members of the community,” Tyson said. “We believe that there is going to be community support. Ultimately, we will open a second campus regardless of what happens with Malcolm X.”
