05/16/2025
Central Catholic plans 102,000-square-foot student center
Central Catholic High School is poised to move forward with a major building expansion in Oakland.
According to agenda materials, Central Catholic is scheduled to brief the Pittsburgh Planning Commission at its May 20th meeting on its proposal to establish a new student center at its campus along Neville Street behind the main school building on Fifth Avenue.
The plan calls for demolishing the current gym in order to build a new student center, a structure designed to total 102,000 square feet on three floors located between Neville Avenue and the Central Catholic football field.
The HDG Architects is the architecture firm for the project, which will be the first major new campus addition at Central Catholic since 2016, when a new STEM building was constructed along Neville Street.
According to the agenda materials, Central plans to include a host of different uses within the new facility, which will cover a larger portion of the available site and incorporate parking within its ground floor.
Along with the gymnasium itself, the new facility will include locker rooms and a wrestling room along with various coaches offices and related spaces on the first floor as well as a weight and fitness room and a lobby on the second.
The third floor, taking up only a portion of the footprint of the rest of the building, is slated to include a kitchen and cafeteria, classrooms and a mix of storage and offices.
The new project was included in Central's new institutional master plan approved in February and was before the Pittsburgh Zoning Board of Adjustment in April seeking a special exception related to recreation and entertainment use.
