The sounds of shovels hitting the ground on Oct. 16 was music to the ears of the Conservatory Lab Charter School community as officials broke ground on a new building project that will expand its lower school campus on Hancock Street.

The music-centric school has been operating on the site – a former nursing home – for several years, housing grades K1 through Grade 2. It has a new Grade 3-8 building on Columbia Road a short walk away from Hancock Street that it opened in 2021.

“We saw this as a critical piece because this is where students start, and if you’re in K-1, a student is with us ten years,” said executive director Matt Chapuran. “We want students to feel aspirational in their surroundings and this can be a place where they can really start to chart their future. With our new building on Columbia Road, there was a desire to be in a building here that is its equivalent.”

Rev. Gregory Groover, chair of the Conservatory Lab board, said the expansion has been a long time coming, and gave credit to board member Gary Gut for lining up the financing and property for both buildings.

“This day is one we have been waiting to see take place,” he said. “We are extremely excited to see the start of construction in this state-of-the-art, 21st-century facility in this neighborhood. It will house extraordinary public education for our children in Boston…I believe this is the only new public school construction in the Grove Hall, Uphams Corner, Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhoods combined.”

The plan is to renovate the existing 19,000-square-foot building, much of which has already been demolished inside after school officials quickly moved to temporarily relocate students to Roxbury last summer. The school will add a 6,000-square-foot addition on the north side of the site and move the playground and main entrance to the front of the site. The work will include adding a new cafeteria, gymnasium, and classrooms to the site, but no expansion of enrollment numbers.
Everything is expected to be ready for the 2025-26 school year.

On hand to celebrate the groundbreaking were Council President Ruthzee Louijeune and state Rep. Chris Worrell. For her part, Head of School Nicole Mack conducted a tour of the gutted interior space.