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After more than a decade of planning and fundraising, the Immaculate Conception School in Tuckahoe finally broke ground on the long-awaited parish gymnasium on June 14.
Faculty members and town officials joined students and parents on the school ground as dozens of hardhat-wearing students dug their shovels into the dirt where their future gym will reside.
The Rev. Eric Raaser worked on the project for seven years, securing funds and overseeing the proposals for the gym. The school once had a plan in place to build a gym – in 1953 – but it never came to fruition.
The $3.5 million project began in earnest in July and is expected to be completed in early spring. By the end of August, parts of the foundation were poured and by October significant progress could be seen on school grounds.
When it’s completed, the gymnasium will serve as the new home for the parish basketball teams, which have had to rent space at other gyms in the past. The school hopes it will help boost its volleyball program, and will serve as a space to host plays and assemblies.
“This is a long time coming,” Tuckahoe Mayor Steve Ecklond said at the groundbreaking ceremony in June. “We’re all so excited that they’ll have their own home. It’ll be nice for the students to have their own identity and space.”
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