TRENTON, NJ –The New Jersey Schools Development Authority (SDA) joined Trenton School District leaders and students as well as state and local officials at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Trenton Central High School today, one of four new facilities delivered by the SDA this September. Continuing to deliver quality educational facilities for New Jersey students, the SDA is providing more than 3,800 additional seats with these four new facilities, 1,850 of which will be in New Jersey's Capital City.

"We know that the community has anxiously awaited this day, and the SDA is thrilled to share in the excitement for the opening of this state-of-the-art educational facility that will be transformative for the students of Trenton," said SDA Interim CEO Manuel Da Silva. "This school is what happens when stakeholders from various entities come together to make a positive impact in the lives of New Jersey's youth. The innovative spaces that are now available to 1,850 students next week and the generations of those to come in the years ahead, will serve to foster academic excellence and success."

The new Trenton Central High School is a 374,000 square-foot school designed to educate approximately 1,850 students in grades 10 through 12. The school will include five Small Learning Communities (SLC) and provide Career Technical Education programs related to Health Sciences, Culinary Arts, Construction, Physical Fitness, and Automotive Technology. Each SLC consists of 10 classrooms, two science labs, one art/project lab, five specialized instructional areas, a learning resource center, and support areas. In addition, the school includes a gymnasium, auxiliary gymnasium, swimming pool, dance studio, fitness center, weight room, cafeteria, media center, auditorium, two life skills labs, outdoor amphitheater and two ROTC classrooms.

In recognition of the community's connection with the former High School facility, the new Trenton Central High School incorporates items preserved from the previous building. This includes four mosaics by Monty Lewis that were in the main entranceway, Travertine marble panel from the old auditorium walls, portions of a column from the front of the building, the weathervane, a pinecone pediment, two of the auditorium chandeliers, and the concrete steps from the front of the school.

As a result of SDA's commitment to building energy-efficient buildings that take the surrounding environment into consideration, this school was built to be LEED (United States Green Building Council – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. The SDA anticipates that the new Trenton Central High School building will achieve a LEED Silver certification.

The school was built using a design-build approach. This method differs from the traditional approach in that SDA contracts with one firm for both the design and construction of a school facility project. Terminal Construction Corp. is the design-build contractor, and worked in partnership with Design Ideas Group Architecture + Planning, LLC on the design. The project is managed by CBRE Heery, Inc. The total estimated SDA project cost for the new school is $155.4 million.

To date, the SDA has invested more than $365 million in completed projects in Trenton alone including eight capital projects (Trenton Central High School, Columbus E.S., Joyce Kilmer E.S., MLK/Jefferson E.S., Gregory E.S., Mott E.S., PJ Hill E.S., and Parker E.S.) and one demonstration project (Daylight/Twilight Alternative High School). SDA’s current portfolio of active projects is valued at approximately $2 billion – including the Capital Project portfolio, emergent projects, and Regular Operating District grants.