Pace Academy
Arthur M. Blank Family Upper School
Located at the main campus on West Paces Ferry Road in Atlanta, GA, and situated on the footprint of the existing Upper School, the new 78,000 sf, four-story facility Upper School complements the style and scale of Pace’s iconic administration building, “The Castle”. The building includes forty classrooms, a three story library, science and computer labs, academic resource center, college counseling offices, and a roof terrace. The student commons offers an area for students and teachers to congregate and collaborate. Extensive renovations to the existing Boyd Gym, Inman Recreation Center, Recreation Fields, Riverview Athletic Complex, as well as the construction of a temporary Upper School Academic Village (consisting of 65 modular classrooms fully outfitted) to allow for the demotion of the existing school were included in the three year $32,000,000 building program.
Logistically constrained in a very tight and active campus environment, the planning requirements associated with this project were extraordinary. Construction efforts required deep excavations immediately adjacent to the historic Castle, and intensive coordination resulted in achieving the goal of zero-disruption to ongoing campus activities.
Pace Academy was founded in Atlanta 1958 by an interfaith group of local community leaders. They envisioned a community open to fresh ideas and debate in the great liberal arts tradition. The school was incorporated on June 30, 1958, with an initial enrollment of 178 students, for the purpose of “training and educating children and operating a school and kindergarten.” Pace Academy is situated on 37 acres in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood. The school’s landmark building, the Castle, was constructed as a private residence in 1932 for the Ogden family.
