After a couple years of work and even more time and energy expended on controversy, the former Malcolm X Academy – built in 1961 As Fulton Junior High – is ready to swing open its doors and welcome kids back.

The school, at 121 E. Hadley St., will officially reopen on the first day of the traditional school year, Thursday, Sept. 1, as home to the Rufus King International Baccalaureate Middle School at the Malcolm X Campus.

Malcolm X Academy closed in 2007. A church school in the voucher program launched a campaign to compel MPS to sell it the building, but the district demurred and instead prepared a plan to move King Middle School into the campus and renovate, expand and redevelop a later addition to the building into a retail component.

King IB Middle School, which has an enrollment of about 450, was previously housed in the former McNair Elementary, which is was outgrowing.

While that building officially has a capacity of 567, it’s meant to be 567 younger children. As such, rooms like the gym and cafeteria were especially challenging for a middle school population.

Beginning this year, the former McNair/King MS building will house Milwaukee Excellence Charter School, a district charter school.

Last week, we got a look inside the Malcolm X campus, where King students will eat in a lunchroom roughly three times the size of its previous one and which has a gym that was built for middle school-aged children, as well as a smaller secondary gym that can be utilized in a number of ways.

The entrance to the building is now on Hadley Street, instead of on 1st Street, and there are many upgrades throughout, according to MPS facilities planner Michelle Lenski.

"We repainted all the walls, including the ceramic tile (with a special paint from which graffiti is easily removed)," Lenski said. "We redid the entire gym. We sanded and resealed the floor, repainted. We put in all new windows. All new doors."

The building – which feels vibrant with a focus on exciting colors, like a bright orange in the stairwells and on some lockers – is newly air conditioned, too.

"The facility had those unit ventilators, those big boxes that kind of sit on the outside wall," Lenski said. "Originally, of course, it did not have air conditioning. When we put in the new ones, we upgraded to have air conditioning, (we) added the chiller. We have nice comfortable building."

There are durable new ceilings throughout. In the classrooms, there is new furniture where necessary, including seating arrangements that encourage and facilitate collaboration, and a number of next generation smart boards – with touch screens – have been added.

Because of technological advances, Lenski says the new, improved boards cost less than the previous model.

The auditorium is an upgrade from the McNair building, too, and it, along with a series of smaller rooms running along an adjacent corridor, will be offered to community groups to encourage collaboration with the school and with one another.

The building includes a range of art rooms, science labs (including Project Lead the Way STEM labs), a library, professional development rooms for staff, a staff lounge and more.

"I feel the new King IB will be a great space for staff and students to collaborate on educational outcomes," said Mark Sain, president of the school board. "The underpinnings from the original Robert Fulton to Malcolm X to the current school have been upgraded with paint, furnishings and technology to make it a learning environment for all to enjoy.

"The classroom sizes afford today's student an opportunity explore and grow. I am very appreciative of the work our Administration and the developers have done to bring such a wonderful space to this city's children."

There’s new grass outside in the yard, and because the retail component isn’t being pursued, that later addition is set to be demolished, which will create more outdoor space for the campus. No timeline for that work has yet been announced.

When it opens, King will temporarily share part of the building with the district’s special education services department while the latter’s offices are renovated. But unlike at its former home, in its new building, King IB Middle School – a feeder for the one of the district’s most respected and in-demand high schools (often named as among the best in the state) – will have room to grow.

Here are some photos taken on our recent visit:

Auditorium

Cafeteria

Corridor

Gym

Library

Collaborative classroom

Project Lead the Way lab

Staff professional development room

Orange stairwell

Green space

The Palmer Street awning