Demolition of Norfolk's former Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center is finished and construction on Next Step to Success' state-of-the-art youth campus will begin in September.
The more than 9-acre campus, called St. Vincent de Paul House, will house the program that works with Norfolk teens on character development, academic support and what organizers call a "success sequence" to help them avoid poverty as adults.
Chuck McPhillips, who leads Next Step to Success, said the $40 million project has cleared its major hurdles, such as 26 months of abatement and demolition.
The nonprofit will select a contractor within days. Construction financing includes a tax-exempt bond arranged with the endorsement of Norfolk's Economic Development Authority and approved by city council on July 14.
"The taxpayer is no burden here," McPhillips said. "There's no liability of the city or any public body."
Phase 1 construction is expected to take about 18 months, with the facility slated to open during the 2027-28 school year.
It will include an administration house, a combined gym and cafeteria, an art house with a media center and music rooms, and one learning house with four classrooms, according to paperwork from Work Program Architects.
More fundraising is needed but a second learning house, along with tennis courts and a wiffle ball field, would be in Phase 1B.
Phase 2 would bring the campus to four learning houses total. The built-out campus will add a chapel, an amphitheater, playground, gardens, pickleball courts and a sports field.
The stained glass and pews were saved from the Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center chapel.
"Folks going into this replica will feel very much like they were in the original chapel," McPhillips said.
Mel Price of WPA said the campus design borrows from a structure connected to the hospital's origin, a home in downtown Norfolk owned by an Irish immigrant named Anne Plume Behan Herron; she opened her house to Catholic nuns tending to victims of the 1855 yellow fever epidemic. That house eventually became St. Vincent de Paul Hospital, later known as DePaul.
Next Step to Success currently serves 120 to 125 students at the former Christ the King School on Tidewater Drive, up from 70 students at its original location at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. McPhillips said enrollment is expected to reach 150 by the end of the year and 200 by the time students move into the campus. The program's eventual capacity is 400.
To participate, students must be 13 to 18, live full-time in Norfolk, and come from a low-income household. The program provides free transportation and meals.
McPhillips described the campus as a tool toward a broader target: cutting Norfolk's poverty rate in half within a generation.
"There's no reason Norfolk should have a poverty rate at close to twice the state average," he said.
The program is built around six pillars: growth mindset; optimism; confidence; agency; service and grit.
Students identify goals, from learning to swim to earning a driver's license, and can receive scholarships toward outside lessons as encouragement for sticking with them.
McPhillips said the students in the program aren't lacking for ability, just opportunity.
The program has graduated two classes and each senior who remained finished high school. Some recent graduates are headed to Old Dominion University and Tidewater Community College.
"They've got it. They're good kids. They're strong kids. They're smart kids," he said."They just didn't win the lottery in terms of financial material wealth when they were born or brought up. But they can do it."
