Bishop Moore Breaks Ground on a $21M Center for the Arts in College Park
Orlando’s largest private high school is adding a 28,500-square-foot arts building to its College Park campus, trading four shared classrooms for a purpose-built home with a 200-seat theater and studios for everything from ceramics to digital media. The move also clears room for a new law program, and it lands as Central Florida’s private schools pour money into the arts.
Bishop Moore Catholic broke ground this month on a 28,500-square-foot Center for the Arts at 3821 Edgewater Drive in College Park. Conceptual rendering only; the final design may change.
Image: Schenkel Shultz Architecture
What to Know
The Bishop Moore Center for the Arts in brief
A dedicated arts building for a school that has outgrown its facilities, funded in part by an active capital campaign and paired with a knock-on expansion inside its main academic hall.
A $21M, 28,500 SF building. The Center for the Arts rises at 3821 Edgewater Drive in College Park, with city permits issued August 3 and construction kicked off earlier this month.
Built for performance and studio work. A 200-seat theater, classrooms for dance, drama, choir and orchestra, studios for digital media, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics, plus a lobby art gallery.
A ripple effect on campus. Vacating the old arts space frees room in Bishop Dorsey Hall for more classrooms, including a proposed student law program with moot court and debate.
Bishop Moore Catholic High School is giving its arts programs a real home. The College Park school has broken ground on the new $21 million Bishop Moore Center for the Arts, a 28,500-square-foot building meant to relieve years of pressure from rising enrollment and to keep pace with a graduation requirement that every student earn a performing or fine arts credit.
The need is easy to understand. Bishop Moore Catholic currently runs its fine arts program out of just four shared classrooms, and performances take place off campus at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Arts downtown. The new building brings those pieces back under one roof at 3821 Edgewater Drive.
What’s being built on Edgewater Drive
Schenkel Shultz Architecture designed the facility, with Williams Company serving as construction manager. The 28,500-square-foot Bishop Moore Center for the Arts is organized around a 200-seat theater, with classrooms for dance, drama, choir and orchestra and studio spaces for digital media, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics.
Beyond the studios and stage, the building adds a lobby with a student art gallery, a welcome center and administrative offices. It is designed to be as much a front door for the campus as a place to make and show work.
The 28,500-square-foot Center for the Arts will anchor the campus at 3821 Edgewater Drive. Conceptual rendering only; the final design may change.
Image: Schenkel Shultz Architecture
Why the school is building now
Enrollment tells the story. Bishop Moore now serves about 1,600 students, up from 1,391 in the fall of 2024, which makes it the largest private high school in Orlando and the second-largest private school in Central Florida. Founded in 1954 on the shores of Little Lake Fairview, the campus has grown in waves, and the arts have been waiting their turn.
Paying for it is a mix of campaign dollars and long-term financing. The school’s Imagine Moore capital campaign has raised more than $5 million so far, with the remaining $16 million expected to come from longer-term gifts and financing.
A ripple effect inside Bishop Dorsey Hall
Moving the arts out of their current space does more than upgrade the program. It frees up room in Bishop Dorsey Hall, the school’s main academic building, for additional classrooms. That includes space for a proposed law program designed to let students explore legal careers through extracurriculars like moot court, speech and debate.
It is a tidy example of how one building can reshuffle a whole campus: the arts get a purpose-built home, and the space they leave behind opens the door to something new.
The project by the numbers
The figures matter because this is a long-awaited upgrade for the region’s largest private high school, replacing four shared classrooms with a dedicated arts campus.
How it fits a wider Central Florida arts push
Bishop Moore is not the only local private school investing in new arts facilities. Lake Highland Preparatory School has a more than $9 million arts district planned as part of its Elevate Highlanders campaign, expanding programs that currently run out of converted classrooms. Before that phase, Lake Highland held a ceremonial groundbreaking in May for a 48,000-square-foot athletic center and a full-sized lighted turf field.
The backdrop nationally is more cautious. The American Institute of Architects projects education construction to grow just 1.5% in 2026 and 1.1% in 2027, with the market constrained by immigration policy, reduced federal funding and declining demographics. The U.S. Census Bureau projects meaningfully fewer school-age children over the next decade, which the AIA says will push the sector toward renovating older facilities rather than building new ones. Against that trend, two Orlando private schools breaking ground on arts space in the same year stands out.
A light real estate read on the project
For College Park, this is a quiet vote of confidence. Strong, well-resourced schools are one of the steadiest drivers of neighborhood demand, and a $21 million investment in a campus that already anchors this stretch of Edgewater Drive tends to reinforce the area’s appeal for families weighing a move.
It is worth keeping in perspective. A single building will not move a market on its own, and Bishop Moore is a private school rather than a zoned public one, so the effect is about the neighborhood’s overall pull rather than any specific attendance boundary. Still, when institutions commit to a place, buyers tend to notice.
The Takeaway
The Bishop Moore Center for the Arts is a straightforward story of a school catching its facilities up to its growth, and it comes with a bonus: the space it frees inside Bishop Dorsey Hall makes room for a new law program. For a campus that has been sending its performers downtown to the Dr. Phillips Center, a 200-seat theater at home is a meaningful change.
Watch the funding and the timeline. The Imagine Moore campaign still has about $16 million to close, and the school had not set a public completion date at groundbreaking. Paired with Lake Highland’s planned arts district, it points to a run of private-school construction in College Park and its neighbors worth keeping an eye on.
FAQ
What is the Bishop Moore Center for the Arts?
A new $21 million Center for the Arts: a 28,500-square-foot building at 3821 Edgewater Drive in College Park with a 200-seat theater, classrooms for dance, drama, choir and orchestra, studios for digital media, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics, a lobby art gallery, a welcome center and administrative spaces.
Where is it and when did it start?
The building is on the Bishop Moore campus in the College Park neighborhood of Orlando (32804). City permits were issued August 3, 2026, and construction kicked off earlier that month. The school had not announced a public completion date at groundbreaking.
Who is designing and building it?
Schenkel Shultz Architecture designed the facility, and Williams Company is the construction manager.
How is the project being funded?
The school’s Imagine Moore capital campaign has raised more than $5 million so far. The remaining roughly $16 million is expected to come from longer-term gifts and financing.
What happens to the space the arts program leaves behind?
Vacating the current arts space frees room in Bishop Dorsey Hall for additional classrooms, including a proposed student law program with opportunities like moot court, speech and debate.
External Links & Related Reading
For readers who want to review the project team behind the new arts building, these are the key references.
Thinking about a move in College Park?
Community investments like a new arts campus say a lot about where a neighborhood is heading. When a move is on your radar, local context makes all the difference.