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St. David Catholic School

St. David Catholic Church on Detroit’s east side was founded in 1921. Ground was broken on the first unit of St. David on December 6th, 1923. The school, designed by the firm of Donaldson and Meier, was dedicated in September of 1924 with 321 students enrolled. A second unit was built in 1925. After a new church was built in 1948, the old church was converted into a gymnasium and auditorium for the school.

In 1959 the high school relocated to a new building across the street, but declining enrollment forced its closure in 1971. From 1970 to 1990, the number of families at St. David fell from 2,000 to 110. The elementary school closed in the summer of 1990, followed by the church itself.

From the state of Michigan Historic Preservation Register:

"The Saint David School and Convent are Lombard Romanesque-style, red-brick structures, constructed in the 1920s. The school is a broad-fronted, two-story, flat-roof structure with a symmetrical facade consisting largely of double-decker pairs of windows set into shallow, arch-head recesses. The entranceways toward either end are capped at the roofline with low gable treatments. The former convent in a two-story, hipped-roof structure with a dormered, clay tile roof and main entrance set into an archway trimmed with Romanesque detailing executed in terra cotta. The Saint David School and Convent is significant as a work of the Detroit architectural firm of Donaldson and Meier and as a fine example of Lombard Romanesque architecture in Detroit."