Officials at the private Hamilton school are happy to see the change in part because it also signals progress toward a bigger goal of eventually building an expansion athletic facility on the southern side of Badin’s property.
For more than a half-century since Badin opened, the school and its outdoor boys and girls’ sports teams have been prep nomads.
Without a campus playing field, sports stadium or track, Badin was forced to cobble together agreements with neighboring school districts such as Hamilton, Fairfield, Ross and Edgewood and others to rent playing fields for its athletic teams.
But last year Badin officials proposed and won approval from the city of Hamilton allowing them to purchase and re-zone the land for the 343-space parking lot.
Later, more city approval for the overall project was granted and and now the president of the Badin school is optimistic as he stands of the edge of the parking lot construction site and sees a new chapter in the school’s history rising from the dust.
“We are really excited to see dirt moving for the first time. This is our first step in our building a brighter Badin program and it starts with a parking lot,” said Brian Pendergest, who until 2022 was a 12-year veteran principal of the school.
The parking lot is scheduled to be open for student vehicles and others by December.
“It’s been a long time in making this happen but we’ve had great support from the city … we continue to fund raise for this $15 million project and we’re closing in on the $9 million mark right now,” he said.
Later work on the 2,600-seat athletic complex and its adjacent practice field will begin and Pendergest said the school hopes to have the new stadium and practice facility up and running by fall of 2025.
When completed as planned, the sports complex would be the second-largest addition to the Badin campus since the construction of the main high school building, which opened in 1966.
Badin’s enrollment going into the coming school year is about 702 students, which is the largest in two decades.
His enthusiasm is shared by many Badin school parents, who now can watch the parking lot construction while waiting in their cars to pick up their children from summer-time football and other sport practices.
Tom Powers, recently watched the earth movers at work while his grandson was at soccer practice.
Powers said he is eager to see the sports complex become a reality.
“It’ll be a top-notch facility,” he said.
Fellow school parent Mike Lipp echoed the sentiment, saying “everybody is really excited about and we won’t have to go traveling for our home games anymore and we can actually come here to our home campus.”
“It’ll be great.”
His son, Badin football player Andrew Lipp, said “I’m stoked about getting our own field and not having to travel all over. It will be exciting.”
Badin Spokesman Dirk Allen said besides Badin, only Moeller High School in northern Hamilton County and Purcell Marian High School in Cincinnati are the last Cincinnati Archdiocese high schools in the area without an on-campus sports stadium.
And Purcell Marian has recently broken ground on its sports stadium project, said Allen.
The end of Badin’s long-history of wandering home games in other venues is coming and few, if any, will be nostalgic about that, said Pendergest.
“We’ve had great partnerships with the local schools of Hamilton, Fairfield, Edgewood and Ross have all been very helpful … and currently Spooky Nook is allowing us to have soccer down there.” But once the new sports complex opens “we won’t have to worry about re-arranging (game) schedules (around other schools’ games),” said Pendergest.
“We’ll have our own facility and we will be able to schedule things as we need it and not around other peoples’ schedules.”
About the Author
