A South Florida private school operator plans to launch a new, bigger location in Aventura.
Miami-based KLA Schools seeks to develop a roughly 100,000-square-foot, four-story school building for students in grades PreK-5 on five contiguous parcels on the south side of Northeast 208th Terrace, with easy access to Biscayne Boulevard/U.S. 1.
KLA Academy Aventura LLC acquired the lots – at 2740, 2750 and 2760 N.E. 208th Terrace, plus two adjacent lots that have no address – for a combined $6.6 million in May, Miami-Dade County records show. Together, the parcels span about 0.72 acres. All are vacant and zoned commercial.
A representative of KLA Schools told the Business Journal the new school building would include more than 30 classrooms and laboratories, plus playgrounds and a rooftop athletic complex. It would have the capacity to teach up to 500 students. Doral-based Civica Architecture designed the project.
KLA Schools’ existing location in Aventura is a 6,500-square-foot leased space at 20301 Biscayne Blvd., part of the Promenade Shops at Aventura shopping mall. That location currently serves about 120 students, only in PreK.
“Parents in Aventura have consistently expressed interest in staying with KLA after the preschool years,” cofounder and CEO Roberto Ortega said in a news release. “The future expansion is being planned with those families in mind.”
KLA Schools plans to submit a site plan to city officials in Aventura “soon” and, should it be approved, expects construction to take two or three years, according to the spokesperson.
Aventura’s City Commission previously adopted a resolution, at a March 3 meeting, to grant KLA Schools a conditional use approval to develop a school on Northeast 208th Terrace and to permit a floor area ratio and lot coverage percentage for the project in excess of what’s typically allowed.
As for staffing, KLA Schools’ current Aventura location has about 30 employees, while the new campus is anticipated to employ 80-100 people once fully operational, “creating a significant number of additional employment opportunities within the Aventura community,” the representative said.
Founded in 2008 by Roberto Ortega and Candy Ortega, KLA Schools operates more than 30 locations nationwide, including 13 locations across South Florida, according to official figures. It specializes in the Reggio Emilia approach to primary education.
In recent years, there’s been a jump in demand for private and charter schools across South Florida amid an influx of wealthy new residents from other states.
Other schools eyeing expansions across the tri-county region include Archimedean Academy in unincorporated Miami-Dade County; North Broward Preparatory School in Coconut Creek; and The Greene School and Pine Crest School in West Palm Beach.
