The San Marino Unified School District will host a ceremony on Monday, June 5 to break ground on the $14 million Barth Athletics Complex at Huntington Middle School.
The event will be held from 4–5:00 p.m. on the track and field behind the existing facility.
“This will be an exciting day for San Marino,” said Andy Barth, who along with his wife, Avery, and their family have taken the lead on the project. “It is the beginning of an incredible new project that will benefit thousands of San Marino children over the course of several decades to come. It will also be an added benefit for this community. It has been a long time in coming and we are glad that we could be a part of making it happen.”
Last year, the Barths pledged $3.5 million for the project. This past February, the family pledged an additional $2 million in debt service over the first four years of a certificate of participation agreement entered into by the SMUSD to help fund the new athletics complex.
Tim and Lisa Sloan pledged funds for the naming rights of the fitness center for $500,000 and the Barger Family, likewise, has pledged $250,000 to have naming rights for the multi-purpose room.
Other contributors include a $100,000 donation from Calvin Lo and his wife, Wendy Hsu, for one of the two media classrooms, $100,000 from Paul and Alice Su for the second media arts classroom, a $50,000 donation from the family of Valerie and Aaron Weiss, $25,000 from Pat Haden via The Fletcher Jones Foundation, $50,000 from the William Hurt Foundation, and $10,000 from the Chinese Club of San Marino.
Plans for the complex – which include a new gymnasium, a fitness room, boys’ and girls’ locker rooms, a multi-purpose room, and two media classrooms – have been approved by the Division of State Architect, or DSA, and construction is scheduled to begin in the days following the groundbreaking ceremony.
The San Marino Board of Education unanimously approved the funding plan for the project at its meeting on Tues., Feb. 14. It is hoped that the complex will be ready for use by the fall of 2019.
