Students at Cristo Rey Orange County High School are getting a significant upgrade to a new nine-acre permanent campus in Santa Ana.
The city of Santa Ana recently signed off on the school’s plans to move into a 151,000-square-foot, four-building campus at SOCO Harbor office park in Santa Ana for $21 million.
Cristo Rey put an $8 million down payment on the campus with help from donor pledges.
The school says it’s actively fundraising for the rest of the property, as well as an additional $26 million worth of renovations, to move in by August.
“This is more than I think our students, families and faculty dreamed of,” Founding President Stephen Holte told the Business Journal during a tour of the new campus.
“We didn’t think we would get almost nine acres in this location—we never would’ve been able to afford that.”
The campus, nearly three time the size of Cristo Rey’s original facility, will allow the Catholic private high school to more than double its enrollment from 200 to 450, right in time to welcome its first graduating senior class. The school has received several donations from Orange County’s business community. The Business Journal this week highlights the largest individual donations in Orange County last year (see page 17).
Finding a larger permanent campus has been the school’s goal since its inception in 2023 when it began with 69 students.
Dubbed “the school that works,” Cristo Rey is known for its corporate work study program where, one day a week, students go to a corporate job on top of their regular academics to gain hands-on professional experience.
It’s among 41 schools within the national Cristo Rey network, originally founded in Chicago in 1996.
Moving Out of Former Catholic Elementary School Building
The move is well-timed for the school, which says it has outgrown its current location at a former Catholic elementary school building on McFadden in Santa Ana.
“We initially thought it was going to be our permanent home, then realized it’s a shared space,” Holte said.
Officials toured more than two dozen buildings, including the old Orange County Register building in Santa Ana, before finding SOCO Habor, which is located on Harbor Boulevard, a block north of Anduril Industries’ main headquarters.
They had a specific set of criteria for the new campus, such as close proximity to its current campus.
“It’s a great location for our students and families,” Karelyn Roberts, founding principal of Cristo Rey OC, told the Business Journal. “Being right on Harbor allows for easy public transportation, in addition to being close to a lot of our businesses that our students work at.”
The school’s current 14 classrooms are crowded, according to Roberts. The new campus allows them to add eight more classrooms, as well as construct a life sciences lab and robotics lab for advanced placement (AP) classes.
To help meet the needs of a student body that has tripled in number, Roberts said that the school is hiring another six teachers next year in addition to an alumni advisor for its first graduating class of seniors.
“We are college prep, so part of our commitment is supporting our students not only to college, but through college and making sure that they have access to the resources they need once they leave us,” Roberts said.
The 151,000 square feet also leaves extra room for the school to lease any unused space to tenants.
Cristo Rey plans to occupy one and a half of the four buildings in the complex, or about 62,000 square feet, and use the rest as income property.
Aims to Add More Corporate Partners for Work Study Program
To keep up with enrollment growth, Holte said that the school will also need to double the amount of businesses within its corporate work study program by next year.
“There are a lot of great companies that are on our radar, and we’re having good conversations now,” Holte said.
Cristo Rey currently has partnerships with nearly 60 companies in the region, including some of the largest healthcare entities in Orange County Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and City of Hope OC.
City of Hope, which recently opened OC’s first and only hospital solely focused on preventing, treating and curing cancer, has been a corporate partner of Cristo Rey since the school launched three years ago.
“These types of programs are important because it creates a pipeline within the community,” Gloria Preciado, chief of staff at City of Hope and Cristo Rey board member, told the Business Journal. “It’s important in any industry, especially in healthcare.”
Cristo Rey reports that 40% of students will return to the company they worked at in high school.
Preciado said that one of the students working at City of Hope last year who came in not knowing what he wanted to do, and by the end of the program, realized that he wanted to become a nurse.
Another company that has been a part of the program since the beginning is Northgate González Markets, which operates 44 store locations across Southern California.
Founded by Don Miguel González Jiménez in 1980, Northgate is currently led by Co-Chief Executive Oscar González, the youngest of the founder’s 13 children, who now all co-own the company.
González chairs Cristo Rey’s board of directors and said that he saw parallels between the students in the work study program and his own upbringing.
“As a kid that grew up in my dad’s little corner grocery store at the age of 10, I’ve always believed in the value of work as a young person,” González told the Business Journal.
Past students at Northgate have worked in departments ranging from information technology to marketing.
“We make them a part of our team,” González said. “We recognize them in town hall meetings, assign them mentors and try to harness their enthusiasm and passion to grow.”
Exclusively Serves Low-Income Families
“Ultimately, I think it speaks to students’ dignity,” Holte said about the move.
“Many times, students from lower-income communities get ‘here’s the second thing’ or ‘that’s good enough.’ We don’t think they should settle. We think they should have a first-rate facility that speaks to their aspirations.”
Unlike many other private schools, Cristo Rey exclusively serves students from working class families who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford college and implemented an income ceiling families must qualify for.
Tuition costs $3,000 annually, but the school collects about $90 per month from families after scholarships and earnings from the students’ paid corporate jobs.
The average family at Cristo Rey makes $53,000 a year.
“You usually think of families of five,” Roberts said. “Most of our families are not families of five. We have families of nine and 12.”
While the school is actively fundraising to finance the rest of the school, it’s also raising money for the $5 million it gives out to students in scholarships per year, according to Holte.
“Momentum’s building and I think there’s just so many people that believe in it,” he said.
The school last month hired a new director of development, Scott Carlson, to help lead Cristo Rey’s growing fundraising efforts.
List of Cristo Rey’s Local Corporate Partners
• 5.11 Tactical
• American Red Cross
• Brown & Streza LLP
• Buchalter
• BYLT
• Capital Group Companies Inc.
• Catholic Charities of Orange County
• City of Hope Orange County
• Container Supply Co.
• Crisp Imaging
• Delhi Center
• Farmers & Merchants Trust Company
• For The Children
• Fuscoe Engineering Inc.
• Gallagher
• Giving Children Hope
• Goe Forsythe & Hodges LLP
• Goodwill of Orange County
• Higher Ground Youth and Family Services Inc.
• Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian
• Northgate González Market
• Providence St. Joseph
• Providence St. Jude
• Psomas
• Rady’s Children’s Health
• Redwitz Inc.
• Reveille Inc.
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange
• SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union
• Silverado
• Silverwood Landscape Construction
• Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange
• Slater Builders Inc.
• Smith-Emery Laboratories
• Sperry Equities
• St. Joseph Catholic Church
• Sunwest Bank
• Tait & Associates Inc.
• UCI Merage School of Business
• Woodside Credit
• Working Wardrobes
—Yuika Yoshida
