Topping out for Hackley arts and tech center

The Hackley School in Tarrytown has held a topping out ceremony for its new Center for Creative Arts and Technology. The new facility replaces the arts building and gymnasium that had been deemed as being functionally obsolete.

The topping out ceremony featured hoisting into place the final steel beam for the building along with a traditional pine tree and American flag. The beam, painted white, carried numerous signatures including those of Hackley students.

“This building is going to be incredibly special for our community,” Charles Franklin, Hackley’s head of school said. “It’s going to be a transformational space not only for the learning that takes place here but also for our community to be together and have those moments of shared experience. It will be a wonderful building for us for generations to come.”

Bill Allan, director of operations for Consigli Construction Co., construction manager on the project, expressed thanks to the many workers “who have helped us reach this milestone.”

The approximately 50,000-square-foot building is on an approximately 3.6-acre section of the school’s campus at 293 Benedict Ave. that covers about 285 acres, 258 of which are in the Town of Greenburgh and 27 are in Tarrytown.

When she presented the project to the Tarrytown Planning Board, Attorney Janet Giris of the White Plains-based law firm DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr LLP said that the new center would be at the western end of the campus’ central outdoor gathering space known as Akin Common. She described it as including a 550-seat multipurpose auditorium, 100-seat experimental black box theater, rehearsal spaces, dressing rooms, a scenic shop, control rooms, a technology hub with workspaces, an art gallery and visual arts studios. An outdoor amphitheater was proposed for future development at the eastern end of the area to be developed adjacent to Akin Common.

Giris described Hackley School as “an independent college preparatory, nonsectarian day and boarding school for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. It was founded in 1899 and has been coeducational since 1970.”