Ramirez household plans to spend $10 million to transform Cardinal Stritch into Ok-12 college

Gus Ramirez was at Cardinal Stritch College for a ceremony for All-In Milwaukee college students when he had an thought.

“After I was on campus, I spotted it was only a lovely campus and could possibly be a possibility for us,” stated Ramirez, co-chair of the Ramirez Household Basis that purchased the campus for $24 million.

The chance is to create a second college to serve kids in Milwaukee. Ramirez based St. Augustine Preparatory Academy on town’s South Facet, which opened in fall 2017. He’s talked previously about opening a second college on the north facet of town.

The 43.5-acre Cardinal Stritch campus isn’t really on Milwaukee’s north facet – it sits on the border of Glendale and Fox Level – however it does include already constructed belongings. Ramirez estimated the present belongings he plans to make use of for a college would price $150 million to $200 million if it have been to be comparable in dimension to Aug Prep.

As a substitute of constructing these belongings from scratch, Ramirez plans to spend round $10 million to improve and preserve the property and amenities whereas growing plans for a brand new college. Funding these investments would require outdoors donors, Ramirez stated in an interview with BizTimes.

“The conversion, although not cheap, $10 million is some huge cash, that conversion is just not cheap, however we’re working from a bodily asset that’s actually in good condition,” Ramirez stated

He stated the opposite patrons trying on the property have been builders possible dealing with $25 million or extra in demolition prices “simply to get the property prepared for any business endeavors.”

“We had a singular benefit in that it was price much more to us than it was to others, in order that’s why we moved in a short time to shut out the method,” Ramirez stated.

Cardinal Stritch introduced plans this spring to close down amidst mounting monetary challenges. The property had simply hit the market when Ramirez was on campus and he labored to have an unique supply on it inside a couple of weeks.

“I consider all of the individuals we labored with concerned with Cardinal Stritch … all have been very enthusiastic concerning the potential of the campus getting used for Christian schooling, I feel that gave us a really important leg up when it comes to getting this deal performed,” Ramirez stated.

Whereas he is aware of the property might be a college and might be used for Christian schooling, the remainder of the small print are nonetheless to-be-determined. Questions like which grades and what number of college students to serve, what the authorized construction might be, how it is going to be associated to Aug Prep and what it is going to be referred to as might be labored out over the subsequent six to 9 months.

“The important thing level is we plan to make use of it for instructional functions, not for business functions,” Ramirez stated.

It can possible be two years earlier than a brand new college would start serving college students.

“I do know this, we aren’t going to develop it as quick as we grew Aug Prep,” Ramirez stated. “Simply because we need to ensure the tradition may be very, very strongly established early on and that’s going to take loads of work.”

Aug Prep went from round 580 college students in its first yr to just about 900 its second and greater than 1,400 by the 2020-‘21 college yr, in accordance with information from the Wisconsin Division of Public Instruction.

Recruitment may even be totally different. At Aug Prep, employees have been capable of stroll from house-to-house within the neighborhood surrounding the college. The Cardinal Stritch campus’ location within the suburbs simply north of Milwaukee doesn’t supply the identical alternative, however Ramirez stated the efficiency of Aug Prep, which has a considerably exceeds expectations ranking on DPI report playing cards, might be a draw.

“As a result of we have now been capable of ship the great from a efficiency perspective, we consider that there might be those that need to come to the college,” he stated, including it’s simply accessible and could be inside 20 minutes of wherever he’d look to place a college to serve Milwaukee college students.

Past the present belongings, the latest adjustments to Wisconsin college funding system that elevated state assist for constitution and selection faculties additionally factored into Ramirez’s choice to purchase the campus.

“We’d not have gone ahead had we not had the brand new funding by the state,” Ramirez stated. “There are only a few selection and constitution faculties at this time that may do main expansions beneath the previous funding system … frankly, I didn’t make the supply till that funding was accepted.”