The city originally had two high schools that were both aging. According to Granto, there were three reasons to build. First, it was best for the school district. He noted, “One of the schools couldn’t be retrofitted because it was too old.”
It was decided to build one new, larger high school, and also make it into a community center. The only way to make this happen for the financially strapped city, Granto said, was through a public-private partnership with Honeywell, Morris Township, NJ, which raised money on Wall Street for the project, eliminating the need for the city to raise taxes.