With the completion of the $10 million Alumni Hall

… students at the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School have a beautiful, spacious hall in which to eat lunch,

… the music department has a state-of-the-art facility for music education,

… the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center has a dining facility to incorporate food service with shows, meetings and festivals, and

… the community has a new exterior performance venue opening onto Lincoln Park green space for outdoor concerts and shows.

“It’s a beautiful building. Everyone’s in awe of it,” said Principal P.K. Poling.

The original plans for Lincoln Park included a cafeteria, but organizers decided practice space was more urgently needed in the available floor plan, so for six years students have eaten in shifts in the atrium. With the school’s growth – from 270 that first year to 630 this fall – lunch had gone up to four shifts. Now students eat in two shifts.

The first floor of the $10 million dining hall and music education facility includes a spacious entry, a data storage area, a dining hall to seat 570, a modern kitchen and large food serving area, an elevator and an outdoor stage.

The second floor houses the music education department, equipped with state-of-the-art digital music technology. Facilities include the department office, seven staff offices, a large classroom, two smaller classrooms, a keyboard lab, four small practice rooms, three teaching studios, a piano studio, a percussion studio, an ensemble studio and a technical lab.

The dining hall saw use before the opening of school on Aug. 22.

On Aug. 1, dignitaries converged on Alumni Hall for a sumptuous dinner preceding the annual Lou Holtz / Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame induction ceremony. On Aug. 20, the PA Cyber Charter School hosted a luncheon for 600 staff members as part of its annual back to school inservice day.