Redeemer Lutheran High School adding gym as it settles in at former St. Gerard church

Redeemer Lutheran High School plans to break ground in June on a roughly $4 million gymnasium. It’s sorely needed, said Eureka Van Wyk, business manager and athletic director at Redeemer Lutheran School. Two years ago, the parochial school system moved its high school students to the former St.

Gerard Majella Catholic Church in Penn Hills. Grades 9-12 got their own space to learn — but not to play basketball or volleyball. Practices for those sports are held in whatever facility is available.



Sometimes, that’s the half-sized gymnasium at Redeemer’s pre-K through 8 building on Idaho Avenue. Other times, the teams are able to snag a few hours at a Penn Hills School District facility. For homes games, they usually ask the away team to host.

“It’s our home game, but we never feel like it’s our home game,” Van Wyk said. As soon as next spring, Redeemer’s high school students could have a court to call their own. It will be open to grades 7 and 8, too.

The plan is to turn part of the high school’s main parking lot into a 11,400-square-foot gymnasium. Concept art shows a white-and-blue building surrounded by a sidewalk and plastered with a large Redeemer logo. New parking will be added in several areas presently covered with grass.

The gymnasium will seat 300 people — not that the league most of Redeemer’s high school teams play in, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Athletic Alliance, draws too many spectators. Gail Holzer, Redeemer’s executive director, said crowds of about 100 are typical for most sporting events. There currently are 45 students enrolled at the high school and 285 in the entire school system.

Oddly enough, Redeemer’s runners are responsible for the large number of seats. The school’s cross-country and track teams participate in the region’s premier league, the WPIAL. As a result, all of Redeemer’s facilities must comply with WPIAL requirements on locker rooms, spectator seating and more, even for sports where it doesn’t compete at that level.

Holzer made clear the endgame is not to promote the basketball and volleyball teams to the WPIAL. “We’re small so we’re not going to pull the same type of athletes,” she acknowledged. The gym is more a matter of solidifying Redeemer’s presence at the old church, she explained, after several years of investments in roofing, air conditioning, lighting and more.

Students will gain a dedicated space for assemblies, physical education classes and events such as robotics competitions. Right now, they eat lunch in the same ground-floor room where they play gym class staples like badminton and hockey. And a weight room added to a top-floor room in the main building would find a more practical home.

“We have the classrooms, ...

we have the teachers and the academics, and now we need that one more piece to give us a full, rounded experience,” Holzer said. All of this is possible for the tiny Lutheran school because of a capital campaign called God’s Plans, Our Hands, which has more than covered the projected costs of the gymnasium. At a Penn Hills Council meeting last month, Redeemer’s engineer, Martha Frech, acknowledged concerns from neighbors that the gym could be a late-night disturbance.

The school will be mindful of light and noise levels, she said..