Old Lehigh Acres Middle School campus to be renovated for August 2022

On Monday night, the School District of Lee County is holding a meeting at Veterans Park Academy for the Arts to update the community on its plans for the future of a different, unoccupied Lehigh Acres school.

The former campus of Lehigh Acres Middle School is in for a revamp. The old campus was vacated in August when students and staff moved to the new school on Sunrise Boulevard. In the meantime, the old campus will be renovated and open again in August 2022 for middle school only. There is no specific school program involved at this time, this is just to get it freshened up and ready for students to occupy.

Kathie Ebaugh, executive director of facility planning and development for Lee County schools, says the campus is a bit older, so she anticipates questions about how they will make the campus look and feel new.

“We have gone through the entire older campus and really looked at it and tried to identify any little things that we would want to improve, so things like bass molding, you know, they get older and tired-looking, so we’ll be replacing base molding, we’ll be replacing lighting, so it’ll look fresh and bright in the campus,” Ebaugh said. “I think when people walk in the campus in August of 2022 when we reopen it just a few short months from now, people are going to be really surprised to see what work we can do and how we can take an older campus and give it some good, tender, loving care and make it look like a great new campus.”

During Monday’s meeting at the Star Café at Veterans Park Academy of the Arts, located at 49 Homestead Road S., parents will be able to voice any concerns or ask any questions they have about the renovation process or the District’s plans for the school. Ebaugh says she has the answers to those questions ready.

“You make an older campus look new with paint and with some attention to detail,” Ebaugh said. “We also will be presenting some design concepts of the new performing arts center or black box theater that we will be building on the campus down the road. It’s kind of a later phase of the project, but we are working on the design components of it right now in conjunction with the design project for the interior renovations of the existing facility.”