The upcoming construction of a nearly $47 million middle school in El Paso will comprise one of the last big projects funded by a $668 million bond approved by voters in the El Paso Independent School District four years ago.
The new Gabriel Navarrete Middle School is being designed by the Houston-based PBK Architects and will go up at 4400 Elm Street on land leased to the district by Fort Bliss.
As planned, the school will serve up to 1,000 students coming from the former Bassett and Armendariz middle schools, which have now been merged. The site is currently the home of the Bassett school.
Last summer members of the EPISD board voted to name the school in honor of Navarrete, a Purple Heart-decorated World War II captain who was a member of the Army’s Company E, made up of soldiers primarily from El Paso’s Segundo Barrio.
Of the nearly twenty facility construction and renovation projects funded by EPISD’s 2016 bond, one, the Crockett Elementary School at 3200 Wheeling Avenue, is finished, while thirteen other projects are in various stages of completion.
Work on the new Navarrete school is expected to launch in early 2022.
By Garry Boulard
