St. Mary-Basha School Broke Ground on $9 Million Center
The 17,000-square-foot facility expands athletic and arts capacity for this long-standing Chandler institution.
Updated on Oct. 8, 2026 in Construction
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St. Mary-Basha Catholic School held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new 17,000-square-foot Art and Athletics Center in Chandler. The $9 million project, funded through a capital campaign, will provide dedicated space for performance arts and physical education.
Why it matters
The development signals a significant investment in expanding infrastructure for private educational operators in Chandler. By integrating specialized classrooms alongside athletic facilities, the project aims to broaden the school's comprehensive resource offerings.
The school is investing $9 million into the 17,000-square-foot facility to enhance its campus amenities. This project follows the school's founding in 1944 and a capital campaign that began in 2025 to secure funding.
The players
St. Mary-Basha Catholic School
A long-standing educational institution in Chandler, operating as a private school since 1944.
Shea Homes
A large-scale national residential and commercial developer acting as the project partner.
Bishop John Dolan
A religious leader who officiated the groundbreaking ceremony with a formal blessing.
The details
The development project, conducted in partnership with Shea Homes, incorporates a gymnasium, a performance stage, a STREAM classroom, and dedicated art and music spaces. The school financed the expansion through its capital campaign, titled Building on Faith: Our Future, Our Tradition, to manage the development costs.
Timeline
1944: St. Mary-Basha Catholic School was founded.
2025: The school began the capital campaign to fund the facility.
October 8, 2026: The school held the groundbreaking ceremony.
Market Landscape
This expansion reflects an ongoing trend of private educational institutions utilizing the 2025 school capital campaign model to upgrade campus facilities. The move mirrors a broader strategy among private operators to modernize amenities to remain competitive in local markets.
Operators in the private school or non-profit sector should note the $9 million scale of this facility as a benchmark for contemporary campus expansion. It is prudent to evaluate capital campaign readiness and partnership agreements with developers like Shea Homes before pursuing similar upgrades.
The takeaway
This development highlights the importance of matching campus infrastructure with specialized learning environments to sustain school growth. Facility operators should track the completion of this 17,000-square-foot project as a signal of local construction cost standards.
Further reading
For additional insights into local infrastructure development, see the Construction section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by The Catholic Sun.
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