Toledo School for the Arts to Begin 25th Anniversary Celebrations with Grand Opening of Annex

Daily Dose  |  08/21/2023 1:00 pm

oledo School for the Arts (TSA) will begin a yearlong celebration of its 25^th year of operation with a ribbon cutting to mark the grand opening of its new Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation Annex and Community Portal on Monday, August 28 at 9:00 a.m. Festivities will take place at the entrance to the Community Portal and Martin D. Porter Art Gallery at 1401 Adams Street, which will be closed from 14^th Street to 15^th Street for the event.

Dubbed “The Next Big Thing,” the $10 million building and educational programming expansion project was created to serve more students, improve the facility and increase sustainability for decades to come. 

The project included purchasing the only remaining space in the building that the school did not own; extensive renovations in the existing building; and the construction of the annex with a black box studio, a barrier-free dance studio, a five-story tower, expanded academic and arts technologies classrooms and a larger art gallery and school store all within the Adams Street “Creative Corridor.”

The new, larger stair tower and the annex now allow the school, which serves grades 6 to 12, to enroll more students. TSA will now be able to enroll up to 840 students, which it plans to do over the next several years, compared to the previous limit of 700. Each year since 2009, TSA has had 200 to 300 students left on its waitlist due to enrollment limitations.

In addition to increasing the student enrollment limit, the project also includes expanded educational programming for students, as well as opportunities for the community at large to engage in arts activities in the building after school and on weekends. The Community Portal entrance will lead the way to art classes and experiences for the general public. The Black Box Studio and other studios and spaces will be available for rent to individuals, arts groups, and community organizations.

Opened in 1999, Toledo School for the Arts, a public “community” (charter) school, has become known statewide and nationally for offering an outstanding academic and artistic education. The TSA student population has grown from 127 students in grades 7–9 when the school opened in 1999 to some 760 students in grades 6-12 in the 2023-2024 academic year. Our socio-economically diverse student body hails from approximately 65 different public school districts and private, parochial, and community public schools, as well as homeschool settings, throughout northwest Ohio.