Hilton Head Christian Academy has opened its new Bluffton campus. Take a look inside
On Friday, Hilton Head Christian Academy leaders cut the ribbon on their new $23 million, 70,000-square-foot campus, cementing a move nearly 20 years in the making.
All 460 of the school’s kindergarten through 12th grade students moved into the new campus last Monday after a week of online classes following winter break.
“In light of the last 12 months of everybody’s life, to move into this new facility is an amazing opportunity to see how God provides,” Head of School Doug Langhals said Friday.
Instead of traditional rows of desks, the school features open floor plans, small group and one-on-one spaces, outdoor classrooms and an “open concept cafe,” according to a press release from the school.
But the new school will honor traditions — each “learning suite” is named after one of the families that founded the school in 1979.
The school broke ground on the new site in 2019. Bluffton-based Court Atkins Group and Minnesota-based Fielding International served as architects on the project, and Savannah-based Choate Construction built the school.
Rod Strickland, chairman of the school’s board of directors, said Friday that the land for the new campus was bought in 2002 by a group of families, who then donated it to the school. Back then, the land, which sits at Buckwalter Parkway and Masters Way, was a “gigantic pine tree field.”
“They had a vision,” he said. “They knew that Bluffton was where the future of growth would be for this area.”
While the main school building is ready, there’s still work to be done on other facilities. Langhals said that the school’s athletic fields would be ready by mid-February, and the fine arts center and gymnasium would be ready by mid-March, when the school plans to throw another opening celebration.
The school was formerly located at 55 Gardner Drive on Hilton Head Island. The old campus is being demolished to make way for 260 apartments, approved in 2019 after an extensive back and forth between developers and the Hilton Head Town Council.
In December, every room of the old school building was vandalized. According to a police report, the front doors of the school were unlocked, and a caller told the police said they heard people screaming as if they were having fun. Each room had broken property, spray paint or broken windows, the report said.