St. Ignatius Catholic School officially opened its multipurpose sports hall on Friday, 2 Feb., nearly five years after breaking ground.
“It’s taken a long time,” Simon Testa, principal of St. Ignatius told the Compass. “One of the main reasons for the delays was, obviously, the COVID pandemic, but you know it is a big project and we did make some amendments so that it could be used as a multipurpose hall rather than just a sports hall.”
Parents, officials and members of Parliament attended the official opening of the 23,000-square-foot facility, which was named after the late Monsignor John A. Meaney – a pastoral leader at St. Ignatius from 1989 to 2002.
The new hall, at the front entrance of the school, is fitted with 12 classrooms on the second floor, which will be occupied by the more-than-100 sixth-formers currently studying arts, entertainment and drama, a record number for that year group, Testa said.
The classes overlooks the court – suitable to host sports like badminton, pickleball, volleyball, basketball, netball and tennis.
According to Testa, the school is hoping to increase their participation in local basketball games outside of St. Ignatius, and welcomes members of the community to utilise their hall, which is designed to be a hurricane shelter.
“Basketball is the number-one sport we are looking to improve in,” he said. “We also want to make sure that the hall is used by the community as well.”
Testa thanked those who made the St. Ignatius multipurpose sports hall a reality, noting that there were many generous groups that have donated.
“I’d like to thank them all,” he said. “I’d also like to thank the parents of the school because a very large portion of the funding has been provided by our day-to-day parents whose fees have helped cover this facility.”
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