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For years, the plans existed mostly on paper.
Then, as construction crews began leveling the ground at St. Francis de Sales School, the scale of what was coming finally became clear to the school’s president, V. Rev. Joe Newman, OSFS.
Newman has a particularly good view of the work. St. Francis is owned by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, and Newman lives with other Oblate priests in a residence attached to the school.
One day, he climbed onto the roof and looked across the construction site.
“I’ve been looking at blueprints for years… I go, ‘Wow, this is bigger than I thought.'”
That footprint is the beginning of an ambitious $26 million, three-phase transformation of the St. Francis campus, one that will add new athletic facilities while eventually creating more room for classrooms and performing arts inside the school.
But the project began with something much larger than a need for new facilities.
St. Francis approaches the formation of its students through four pillars: academic, spiritual, physical and social. As the school began looking ahead to its 75th anniversary in 2030, Newman, a 2003 St. Francis graduate, said administrators assessed how the campus was serving each of those areas and what students would need in the decades ahead.
One need became particularly apparent.
“We need more academic space and we need more classrooms, which is a great, great need to have in a school.”
Finding that space led St. Francis to rethink how parts of its existing building are being used.
Athletic spaces, including locker rooms, a weight room, a wrestling room and coaches’ offices, currently occupy portions of the original school building.
By constructing a new athletic facility first, those programs can move out, allowing their former spaces to eventually be renovated for academics and performing arts.
“We want to invest heavily in the mission,” Newman said.
Building a new home for athletics
The first phase is already taking shape on the school’s West Bancroft Street campus. Newman said steel is up, walls are going up and the roof is on the new athletic building, which is expected to be ready for the 2027-28 academic year.
The facility will include new locker rooms, a weight and fitness area, athletic training space, a wrestling room, athletic offices, concessions and restrooms.
It will also give the school something it has never had on campus: dedicated hockey training space with synthetic ice that will allow players to skate and train at school, all while maintaining its relationship with Tam-O-Shanter, where the hockey program currently practices and plays.
The new locker rooms will also support football, soccer and lacrosse and help St. Francis make greater use of its existing on-campus stadium.
For years, St. Francis has played its home football games less than a mile away at the University of Toledo’s Glass Bowl. Newman said that arrangement will continue for major games that require the larger stadium’s capacity, including match ups against local rival schools such as St. John’s Jesuit and Central Catholic.
But the campus improvements should make it possible for St. Francis to bring some smaller football games home. The school’s soccer, lacrosse and track and field programs already compete on campus.
Once the new athletic building is complete, St. Francis plans to turn its attention inside.
Phase two will renovate the spaces vacated by athletics in the existing school, creating additional classrooms and a dedicated performing arts space.
Phase three is planned for completion by the school’s 75th anniversary in 2030 and will add an indoor field house featuring 40 yards of turf. Newman said the space will be available to all St. Francis athletic teams as well as the school’s band.
Investing in the next generation
Newman said the campaign has received support from graduates, parents and other supporters, including donors who no longer live in Toledo or even Ohio.
As of September, approximately $18 million had been received or pledged toward the project.
Among the families with longstanding ties to St. Francis are the LaValleys, longtime supporters of both St. Francis and the broader Toledo community. The school’s existing LaValley Field bears the family name, and their relationship with the school stretches across generations.
“They have come in and supported for many, many years.”
Dick LaValley’s class of 1976 recently returned to St. Francis for its 50th reunion, Newman said, another reminder of the connection the school hopes to maintain with graduates long after they leave campus.
For Newman, however, the significance of the project ultimately comes back to the students who will use the new spaces.
He said recent graduates have already approached him after seeing the construction, telling him they wish the facilities had existed when they were students.
“I want them to know that this entire community supports them here,” Newman said. “It’s not just an individual experience, but it’s something that they belong to, something much bigger than themselves.”
Dedicated spaces, he said, can help foster that sense of belonging, whether a student’s passion is athletics, performing arts or academics.
“When you get those spaces for the things that you love, whether that’s a practice space or a performing arts space, or even classrooms to your interests, it makes you belong.”
A project with a reach beyond campus
St. Francis already shares some of its existing facilities with the Toledo community. The school’s pool has long been used by The Josh Project, a local nonprofit that provides water safety education and swimming lessons, particularly for undeserved youth. The Toledo Fire & Rescue Department’s dive team also uses the school’s dive well for training.
Newman said the new facilities could create additional opportunities for St. Francis to work with community organizations.
“Once you have a facility, it’s really nice to be able to use it for the greater good,” he said.
And as construction continues toward the school’s 75th anniversary, Newman sees another message in the millions of dollars being pledged to a project in West Toledo.
Some of the graduates supporting it have built lives hundreds of miles away. Yet they’re choosing to invest back home.
“People are investing in this city,” Newman said. “They’re not all living in Toledo. They’re not all living in Ohio.”
For Newman, that support speaks not only to St. Francis’ future, but Toledo’s.
“Toledo matters,” he said. “Great things happen in Toledo.”
