Thursday, December 19, 2013
YOUNGSTOWN
The board of directors at Cardinal Mooney High School has yet to decide whether to launch a public capital campaign to raise the money needed to build a new facility in southern Mahoning County and leave the city’s South Side campus.
The school board had its monthly meeting Wednesday and, as part of that, discussed the potential move, said Nicholas Wolsonovich, schools superintendent for the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown.
“We’re making good progress toward achieving our preliminary goals for raising money in the ‘quiet phase’” of the campaign, Wolsonovich said. “No decision was made about a public kickoff.”
The goal is to raise $23 million during the quiet phase from past donors and alumni.
Wolsonovich declined Wednesday to say how much has been raised.
The projected cost of a new building is $29.5 million and an additional $5 million endowment set aside for scholarships for needy students.
The school board will have its next regular meeting in mid-January, and doesn’t have plans to specifically discuss the status of the campaign, Wolsonovich said.
For more than a year, some school supporters have been advocating a relocation of Mooney to the county’s southern suburbs. Bishop George V. Murry decided June 4 to keep the school at its current location on Erie Street in Youngstown. But he announced June 26 that new information about the cost of asbestos remediation at that location made him rethink his decision.
An enrollment feasibility study found that the school would gain 100 to 150 students if it moved to the suburbs.