On Monday, July 27, shovels went into the ground at 1140 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street for a $44 million expansion of Crispus Attucks High School. MVGeneral was there with our partner F.A. Wilhelm Construction, alongside Indianapolis Public Schools, IU Health, and the Indy Health District, to mark the start of construction.
It was a fitting morning for it. Attucks has been a landmark in this city for nearly a century, and the work beginning now is designed to carry it into the next one.
What Is Being Built
The expansion adds capacity that directly serves the school’s growing health sciences focus:
- Four new specialty classrooms
- An advanced health sciences laboratory
- A regulation-size gymnasium
The project is anchored by a $25 million investment from IU Health and the Indy Health District, made in partnership with the Indianapolis Foundation, with the balance funded through IPS bonds. Construction is scheduled to reach completion in the winter of 2028.
The health lab is not an abstraction. IU Health launched its Fellows program at Attucks in 2021, and the new space gives that program a permanent home built for the work.
“Our collaboration has given dozens of high school students hands-on training that sets them on a path toward a career in the healthcare field.”
Dennis Murphy, President and CEO, IU Health
Why This Campus
Crispus Attucks opened in 1927, built by a segregated school board for Black students who were shut out of the city’s other high schools. What that board intended as exclusion became, in the hands of the community, one of the most accomplished schools in Indiana. The campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
That history was present throughout the ceremony, and it framed how the district talked about the investment.
“This expansion isn’t just about new classrooms and a new gym. It’s about giving the students who walk these halls, both now and in the future, the same opportunities to dream big that generations of Attucks students before them fought for.”
Dr. Aleesia Johnson, Superintendent, Indianapolis Public Schools
MVGeneral’s Role
MVGeneral pursued this project in partnership with F.A. Wilhelm Construction. We bid the opportunity together and sat at the same table for the owner interview, and we are delivering it together now, for Indianapolis Public Schools with RATIO Design as architect.
Our scope covers three functions on the project team:
XBE procurement. We manage the effort to get certified minority, women, veteran, and disadvantaged business enterprises onto this project and into real scopes of work. That means identifying qualified firms, getting them to the bid table with enough lead time to price the work properly, and tracking participation through construction rather than reporting it after the fact.
Community outreach events. We plan and run the events that connect the project to the neighborhood around it, including the sessions where local and diverse contractors learn what is coming up for bid and how to compete for it.
Project engineering and site safety. Our project engineer supports the submittal, RFI, and closeout workflow that keeps the schedule honest. Our site safety coordinator supports safe operations on an active campus, which matters more than usual here: students and staff will be in this building while construction proceeds around them.
There is something fitting about the procurement piece in particular. Attucks was built in 1927 to keep Black students out of other schools. Nearly a century later, part of our job on this campus is making sure the contracting opportunity that comes with rebuilding it is genuinely open. That is not a slogan. It is a scope of work with names, deadlines, and numbers attached.
Members of the project team on the lawn at Crispus Attucks ahead of the ceremonial dig, July 27, 2026.
Looking Ahead
Construction continues through 2028. We will share progress from the site as the work moves forward.
To the students at Attucks: this one is for you.
MVGeneral Construction Services provides owner’s representation, construction management, general contracting, and diverse procurement consulting across Indiana. Contact us to talk about your project.