Charter School Archives - Bush Construction

Green House Venture: Urban Agriculture Education Center

Posted on September 12, 2025

Bush Construction is honored to serve as the design-build partner for the Green House Venture Education Center – a visionary project that blends sustainability, education, and community impact. Located in St. Louis’ historic Shaw neighborhood, this 9,500-square-foot facility is the capstone to the Green House Venture (GHV) campus and a cornerstone for STEM and bioscience education across the region.

As both designer and builder, Bush Construction worked closely with GHV from day one to translate their mission into a dynamic, forward-thinking facility. Every element of the design reflects a shared commitment to hands-on learning, environmental stewardship, and access to cutting-edge agricultural technology.

As Sarah Gibson, Bush Construction’s Director of Design in St. Louis, shared during the groundbreaking ceremony:
“It is one thing to design and build a building, but it is another to rally a community, a city, donors and volunteers behind a vision. Just like planting a garden, many times we see the bounty but forget about the effort it took to get the soil mix right… The Green House Venture has planted seeds over the past several years, spread them widely, and changed planting strategies to benefit the vision and increase the impact when called for.”

The Education Center features:

A state-of-the-art greenhouse with aquaponics, vertical farming, and rooftop rain gardens
Flexible classrooms and lab space designed for bioscience and nutrition curriculum
A demonstration kitchen, multi-purpose gallery, and gathering areas for both students and the community
Integrated media technology enabling live-streamed instruction and regional outreach
Sustainable infrastructure including solar readiness, rainwater harvesting, and energy-efficient systems

Our team prioritized universal design principles and long-term sustainability throughout—from concept to construction—ensuring the center is accessible, adaptable, and built to serve generations of students.

Slated to open in Fall 2026, this project embodies Bush Construction’s ability to deliver complex, community-centered spaces through a fully integrated design-build approach. We are proud to help Green House Venture bring their bold vision to life and build a platform for future leaders in science, agriculture, and wellness.

Kairos Academy High School

Posted on December 10, 2024

Kairos Academies is a high performing public charter school in St. Louis, serving grades 6 to 12. Founded in 2019, Kairos Academies has a unique teaching method involving a high degree of self-directed work that will enable students for the contemporary work environment they will face as adults. This educational method informs the design of the school’s teaching spaces, which include a higher mix of common and breakout spaces than conventional schools.

Kairos has operated in a leased warehouse space since its start. When it became clear that their ambitious model was delivering great results and they would need a permanent home, they reached out to Bush (formerly UIC in St. Louis) to assist in identifying and developing a new home. Having successfully completed the development of two high-performing charter schools in St. Louis previously, Bush had the experience to help Kairos realize their goals.

Bush’s engagement started with programming and sizing of the project, along with site identification and acquisition. In the spring of 2024, Kairos acquired a 4.5 acre site in the Bevo Mills neighborhood. Bush has created designs to rehabilitate the 100,000 sf existing building on the site into a school that will enable Kairos’ teaching method and allow them to continue to grow.

Bush’s development team is working with Kairos and has helped source New Market Tax Credits along with investments and financing for the projects and will start construction on the project in early 2025.

Green House Venture

Posted on December 10, 2024

The Green House Venture (GHV) is an educational and community resource that synergizes the interests of multiple institutions in South St. Louis city in their search for more robust STEM/STEAM education. The Venture brings Saint Louis University together with four elementary schools, each with its own distinctive mission and character –public, charter, parochial, Christian-in a single Urban Education Alliance District. It will offer hands-on learning opportunities for schools in a building that is itself a model for sustainability and urban agriculture. In conjunction with the SLU Salus Center, it will offer outreach and food distribution programs to benefit the community. In addition, the Venture will be a new, iconic building for the neighborhood, demonstrating that green architecture and urban agriculture are not simply trendy or ad-hoc solutions, but vibrant and lasting visions for the future of living in cities.

The 10,000sf facility includes indoor and outdoor classrooms, bio-lab space, a gallery, growing spaces, and office and support areas. The growing spaces include indoor and outdoor areas to demonstrate the potential for year-round food production, and encompass 5 distinct areas: SMOS Dragon’s Garden, a lesson in the remediation of urban land; the main greenhouse and aquaponics gallery for understanding growing in small ecosystems; the hydroponic roof garden, demonstrating the ease of adapting lightweight roof gardens for home use; the courtyard, a series of trellised fruit trees and growing towers; and the embankment garden, a 2-block reclaiming of unused land adjacent to the highway for urban agriculture and native plants.

Kairos Academy 9th Grade Expansion

Posted on December 10, 2024

Kairos Academies, a Saint Louis-based charter school, partnered with Bush Construction to design and build an 18,000-square-foot 9th grade expansion that supported rapid enrollment growth—without disrupting daily school operations.

Delivered on an accelerated 10-week summer schedule, the project was completed in time for the new school year, ensuring continuity for students, staff, and families while allowing the school to grow in a financially and operationally responsible way.

Design-Build Solutions for Enrollment-Driven School Growth

Kairos Academies’ long-term growth strategy required facilities that could expand alongside enrollment while maintaining a strong student experience. Bush Construction provided integrated development, architecture, and construction services, allowing early planning, fast decision-making, and schedule certainty.

By completing design, permitting, and preconstruction in advance, construction began immediately when school recessed for summer—minimizing risk, compressing timelines, and protecting the academic calendar.

Adaptive Reuse that Supports Learning & Longevity

The expansion is located within the historic Concordia Publishing House, an underutilized office and warehouse building already housing Kairos’ middle school grades. Bush Construction helped repurpose existing space into modern, student-centered learning environments—leveraging high ceilings, abundant natural light, and durable materials to balance character, performance, and long-term stewardship.

The project includes:

New classrooms and flexible collaboration zones
A renovated cafeteria supporting daily student use
Gender-neutral restrooms promoting inclusivity
Refurbished historic wood block flooring selected for durability and character

These design decisions enhanced learning, visibility, and supervision while supporting the school’s educational philosophy.

Built Around School Operations & Stakeholder Confidence

Every decision—from sequencing to material selection—was guided by three priorities:
operational continuity, budget responsibility, and student experience.

The result was a smooth, on-time delivery that:

Supported enrollment growth without operational disruption
Protected leadership credibility with families and stakeholders
Created flexible spaces that adapt as programs evolve

Lafayette Preparatory Academy

Posted on December 10, 2024

Phase 1 – Renovation of Classroom Buildings of Historic Lafayette Church

23,000SF

Lafayette Preparatory Academy is a top-ranked St. Louis City charter school and its reputation continues to grow. Their facility is in the prominent and beautiful neighborhood of Lafayette Square, near downtown. They came to us when they found a building in the area that they were trying to serve – the historic Lafayette Church at the northeast corner of Lafayette Square Park. The building had a lot of potential – though not a lot of land – and that worked for the school from a location and financial perspective. We were able to help with the development of the building, including acquisition, financing, deployment of incentives, and planning.

In order to meet the schedule the school needed to begin holding classes in the building, we divided the project into two phases. The first phase was the 23,000sf renovation of two of the old Sunday School classroom buildings. Both of historic significance, one was built in the 1940s and the other in the 1960s, and both were in terrible shape having been vacant for several years. The design team worked with the school leadership and staff to re-purpose the space into light-filled and spacious classrooms, a library, offices, and cafeteria / multi-purpose room. Once complete, the school began using the facility and we began to prepare for Phase 2. Interestingly, the 1940s building had been designed to have two more stories added to it, but the plan was never carried out. With such little space on the site to build, the challenge for Phase 2 was to fit several more middle school classrooms and a gym on the site.

Phase 2 – Middle School Addition and Gym Addition

16,500SF

After completing Phase 1 – renovation of the classroom buildings – we began planning for Phase 2, which was decidedly more complicated. The design team was able to squeeze a two-story classroom building between the historic church and the 1960s building, and connect the floors. We also designed and engineered the addition of a full-sized gym on top of the existing 1940s building. The original plans for the building called for a vertical addition of two more floors of classrooms. Ultimately we were able to add the gym and successfully navigate the code changes that were made.

Being in a historic district, the new construction portions of the project faced regulatory challenges and approvals required by City guidelines. We were able to work with the neighborhood and the Preservation Board to design a beautiful addition to the neighborhood and a functional facility for the school.

City Garden Montessori School

Posted on December 10, 2024

City Garden Montessori Charter School is a grass roots public charter school serving children from pre-school through 8th grade. The school serves the children in the Shaw, Botanical Heights, and Forest Park Southeast neighborhoods and consistently rates as one of the top performing schools in the State of Missouri. Like many community initiated charter schools, City Garden began with kindergarteners and first graders only. As the children aged through the school and new students came into the kindergarten level, the school grows to its planned size. The funding formula is based on a per student allocation from the state, so in these early years, charter schools have to be smart about their expenses and facility choices.

When the City Garden board and staff began working with our team, they had been operating for three years in the basement of a generous church, but were facing an impending crunch of space as their enrollment expanded. At the same time, they were not quite to 50% of the eventual enrolment and with this the funding to make the next step in their facilities need. Working collaboratively with City Garden, the community, and our lending partners, we developed a financially viable facility solution that would allow for a new long term facility on an escalating lease plan that modeled the school’s growth, with later options for purchasing the building. This allowed the school to move into the facility they needed on the terms that fit their budget, and concentrate their efforts on educating children and positively impacting the community.

Our design and construction teams followed the development process, creating an exceptional design in this 1940’s warehouse building, on a short timeline. This once nearly abandoned and boarded up building, now features large naturally lit classrooms, a central atrium space, gymnasium and pending LEED certification.

To find out more about City Garden, please visit www.citygardenschool.org.