NEW SCHOOL COMING TO SAGINAW RIVERFRONT
Workers at the construction site for the new "Saginaw United High School", which apparently will adopt the Phoenix as their mascot
THE MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT, GREAT LAKES, AND ENERGY, OR EGLE – has awarded the city of Saginaw with a $1 million Brownfield Redevelopment Grant. This grant will go towards the development of a new high school campus on the riverfront in downtown Saginaw, which is already under construction.
This project will attract more$61 million in capital investment, and funding coming from a Saginaw bond passed by voters in 2020.
This new campus will replace the existing Saginaw and Arthur Miller High Schools, both of which have been in need of significant repair and repurposing. Highlighting this need, a few years ago at Arthur Miller High School a local rapper raised more than $5,000 for a scholarship program and general updates to the school, “It wasn’t necessarily ‘cool’ to go to school, we didn’t have the people that we looked up to or the people that was influential instructing us ‘hey, school can be a stepping stone to something greater,’” the rapper, who is now based out of Las Vegas, Corey “Corey Dollaz” Davis said. “I kind of realized that and I said ‘you know what, when I get a position, not only am I gonna give back to the school, I’mma make sure it’s an academic scholarship.”
The school board expects this larger school to open at least 10 new teaching positions.
Both the city and the school board are excited for this project and see it as a crucial step forward to facilitating a better learning environment for students, reverse declining enrollment, and improve teacher recruitment.
Like most urban riverfronts, this property has traditionally been an industrial area – sawmills, coal processing, and lumberyards, all from the 1890’s to 1980’s, and was filled in to open it to future development, despite the property being contaminated from the years of industrial use. EGLE awarded assessment grants for ground and site testing, as well as further grants for transport and disposal of contaminated soil.
State Rep. Amos O’Neal was happy with the progress this project has made so far saying “As the representative for the city of Saginaw, we in the legislature are glad to help work with our partners at EGLE to provide these dollars too support this transformational project for the citizens of Saginaw.”
EGLE is committed to supporting and uplifting Michigan communities through grants, loans, and other funding and projects that supports and protects public health and the environment, creating economic growth and jobs. Overall in 2022 EGLE provided nearly $21 million in Brownfield Funding to 67 projects statewide.