Credit: Scott Keebler/Facebook Reel
The school has met the wrecking ball and backhoe after 31 years in existence.
Thirty-one years after it opened -- and 14 years after the final day of school at Kennedy-Kenrick Catholic High School -- the building has met the wrecking ball.
Facebook Reel video from resident Scott Keebler showed the demolition underway last week at the East Johnson Highway school in Norristown.
Alumni recently gathered to say a final goodbye to the school.
The official last day was June 10, 2010, which was celebrated with a liturgy reflecting on the legacies of the four schools that led to the formation of Kennedy-Kenrick.
On Jan. 28, 2008, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced that a new Upper Providence Township high school – the 209,000-square-foot Pope John Paul II – would replace Kennedy-Kenrick and St. Pius X High School in Lower Pottsgrove.
Legacies that Kennedy-Kenrick leaves behind include a PCL Championship field hockey team in 2008.
The school opened in 1993, established as a merger of Archbishop Kennedy in Conshohocken and Bishop Kenrick High School in Norristown. Enrollment included students from Roxborough, Norristown, Lafayette Hill, Blue Bell, Andorra, and Philadelphia.
Credit: Scott Keebler/Facebook ReelPlans for the grounds where the building currently stands include a 325-unit residential townhouse development. Wayne-based Progressive New Homes purchased the space, which combined two pieces of land into one, from the Philadelphia Archdiocese for $3 million.
According to Progressive New Homes President Sarah Peck, the project will be done in multiple phases, with the first of them starting soon. This portion will include 90 townhomes up for sale and should take about three years to complete.
A second phase of the project will also begin in 2024 but will include four unique buildings with 200 “garden-style apartments.” This Phase Two will also include a swimming pool, as well as a clubhouse for the complex. Peck said that this second portion will begin “no later than the spring of next year” with the hopes of a year-end start in 2024.
In 2025, a third phase is planned, designed to include 35 rentable townhomes. Those houses for sale are projected to range from “the high $200,000s to the lower $400,000” once complete. Peck said that the properties are aimed at being affordable for “first-time home buyers” or those looking to downsize. Rent rates have not yet been determined for the third and final phase.
