St. Joe’s New Neighbors
The Shriners Hospital has officially been torn down. A new Lifetime Fitness, restaurants, and business will replace the open land. Photo: Claire Price
November 4, 2018
We’ve all heard the bulldozers and diggers rumbling around next door on the dirty and rocky plot of land that once held Shriner’s. It’s getting quite annoying if you haven’t noticed, but soon it won’t be very annoying anymore. St. Joe will be welcoming some new neighbors: Lifetime Fitness, restaurants, and a business building.
Who is making all this ruckus? Delco Construction Service. The entire lot is fifteen acres: Lifetime Fitness owns the back ten acres and Delco owns the front five. Delco plans to use the front five acres for a few restaurants and office space. The back is where athletes — and the people who buy subscriptions to the gym but never attend — will be very happy because Lifetime will be constructing another one of its massive gyms. The gym will include two pools, one outdoor and one indoor. Inside, a variety of machines, weights, and other equipment will be featured.
You may be wondering if this will affect St. Joe in any way, and the answer is yes. St. Joe will be getting a new entrance and exit to the campus. The new entrance will be off of Litzsinger Road in the front. Principal Jennifer Sudekum says the entrance will even include gates.
“The gates will look really nice and will be a nice feature,” she added.
The new exit will be in the shady area near Zahner lounge.
“It’s pretty exciting that we will be able to get right in and right out. That will hopefully ease traffic out of our parking lot,” Mrs. Sudekum said.
The final question: when will you have silence while taking a Chinese or Spanish quiz?
If all goes well, the construction should be finished by next summer. The current seniors will unfortunately not experience a quick exit out of the campus, but all juniors and underclassmen will get to benefit from this construction. Hopefully, the construction continues smoothly and without any issues. Whenever you hear tons of noise next door, just remember it is all done with good intent that will benefit us all.
