Latin academy set for expansion

  • 2018-10-13
Geneva Classical Academy (GCA) in Lakeland is moving to a bigger space.

The school's new location is a group of buildings totaling 72,000 square feet, and used to be Lakeside Baptist Church. Located at 1736 New Jersey Road, it is set to open next year in August.

GCA started in 1996 as a single classroom school, with five students in kindergarten and one teacher. Children who attend the school learn Latin by grade three. It has grown over the years and is currently at Lakeland Highlands Road in the same space as Parkway Baptist Church. School officials purchased the property two miles from the school's current location for $1.9m in order to expand.

According to Rich Cali, GCA's headmaster, the school needed more space, and also wanted a location of its own in order to maintain control of how to use the property and how it looked. Available Print shops can create educational materials for schools and other entities that move to a new location.

The new spot has 11.9 acres of space, whereas Parkway Baptist is 70,000 square feet and 7 acres and GCA can only use one third of it. Property appraiser records from Polk County state that Lakeside Baptist's oldest part was erected in 1965, but that declining attendances there since have left to a situation where the church has more space than it needs.
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