A charter school could rise in the former Hallahan High School building in Center City

The former John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls’ High School building, closed since 2021, could become the site of a Philadelphia charter school.

Hallahan, on N. 19th Street just off Vine Street in Center City, is being eyed by the Belmont Charter Network to house its high school.

”We are thrilled to announce we have identified a space that we feel will be more suitable for our high school students,” Belmont officials wrote to staff in a message last week. “We have the opportunity to relocate to the former Hallahan Catholic School building. ... This campus provides the much-needed space and includes many of the amenities that we feel would best serve our students, including a gym, auditorium, and larger cafeteria. It will also enhance our co-op, internship and other programmatic opportunities available to our students.”

A Belmont spokesperson confirmed the charter school is “in the process of further exploring the possibility of making this historic building the future home of Belmont Charter High School.”

The school, Belmont Charter Network spokesperson Allison Steele said, “has been engaged in a search for a place to relocate our high school, as we have outgrown our current location. We have received an overwhelmingly positive response from our school community about the prospect of moving to a new building.”

Hallahan was the first all-girls Catholic high school, founded in 1911 by Mary Hallahan McMichan. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia closed the school in 2021, citing dwindling enrollment and finances. The closure was strongly opposed by alumnae at the time.

Some Hallahan alumnae had banded together to attempt to open Center City Girls Academy, a private, non-diocesean school to take Hallahan’s place, but it’s not clear whether that school will ever get off the ground. The would-be school’s board had hoped to name it after McMichan, but were blocked by the archdiocese from doing so.

Denise Baron, a Hallahan alumna, said the latest development in the building’s history was most welcome.

”There’s a lot of us that are totally ecstatic,” said Baron. “We would love for it to stay a school, not become condominums or anything else. We want the legacy of Mary Hallahan McMichan to stay alive, educating youth. I think she would be very happy about this.”

Belmont is one of the city’s oldest charters; it opened in 2002 in West Philadelphia as a K-8 school, and in 2014 was granted the ability to expand to high school grades.

Belmont high schoolers currently share space with Inquiry Charter, another of the network’s schools, at 1301 Belmont Ave.

The former Hallahan building was sold by the archdiocese in 2022 to developer Lubert-Adler for $13.1 million.