Shipley Holds Groundbreaking Ceremony for Phase I of the Upper Campus Master Plan

Dark skies, heavy winds, and the forecast of thunderstorms did not dampen high spirits in Shipley’s Yarnall Gymnasium, where the Groundbreaking Ceremony for Phase I of the school’s Upper Campus Master Plan took place on Thursday, April 28. Shipley alumni, trustees, parents, grandparents, and friends joined students and colleagues for the celebration, which followed the end-of-year All-School Assembly.

Scott Zelov, Lower Merion Township Commissioner, spoke after being introduced by Head of School, Steve Piltch. Susanna Lachs, Chair of Shipley’s Board of Trustees, and Amiyr Jackson ’11, All-School President, also spoke. Mark Balderston ’11, President of the senior class, announced the senior class gift: a scoreboard for the Ezra Keiser Memorial Baseball Field, which is part of the project’s first phase.

Phase I of the Campus Master Plan includes reconfiguration of the fields and tennis courts on the main campus and the addition of parking spaces, a new entrance at Wyndon and Merion Avenues, and new driveways.

At present, Shipley has non-regulation-sized fields and six tennis courts on the Upper Campus, in addition to two artificial turf fields in Gladwyne. The reconfiguration of the Upper Campus will provide two regulation-sized artificial turf fields that will be used for field sports in the fall and softball and baseball in the spring.

The additional parking, new entrance, and reconfiguration of roads and walkways will ease the congestion on campus and on the surrounding roads at pick-up and drop-off times.

Phase I is the first part of a larger plan that includes a new academic building and dining commons, an annex to Yarnall Gymnasium, a small outdoor amphitheater, and renovations to the main school building on Yarrow Street. Shipley has been engaged in the “quiet phase” of a fundraising campaign to increase endowments for faculty and student support and to fund the Upper Campus plan. The School has already raised more than $16 million in gifts and pledges toward the first phase of the project and will continue its efforts