Gulliver Preparatory School broke ground on a nearly 95,000-square-foot STEAM Complex at its Upper School Campus in Pinecrest on Wednesday, marking a major expansion tied to the private school's 100th anniversary. The new complex will bring together a STEM Commons and an Arts + Innovation Center, with classrooms, laboratories, collaboration space, arts studios, performance facilities, and dining space all under one project umbrella.
According to a release distributed via PR Newswire, the STEAM Complex is designed to enable research, experimentation, creation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and real-world application. The STEM Commons portion is described in the same release as a 35,000-square-foot facility featuring 16 classrooms and laboratories, along with a 2,000-square-foot collaboration space, dedicated teacher planning areas, and an indoor-outdoor dining facility and kitchen. That figure differs from an earlier Gulliver Prep announcement in March, which described the STEM Commons as a 32,000-square-foot facility with the same 16 classrooms and laboratories; the discrepancy between the two square-footage figures was not explained in either announcement.
What's Inside the Arts + Innovation Center
The Arts + Innovation Center, the complex's other half, is planned to include a 6,000-square-foot central Agora and a 330-seat lecture hall. Dance, orchestra, and visual arts studios are also part of the design, along with a blackbox theater and what the school describes as professional performance and production capabilities.
School leadership framed the groundbreaking as part of a broader ambition. Simon Hess said outstanding schools in globally connected Miami will help shape the community's future, and that Gulliver is preparing students to lead, innovate, and live purposefully, per the PR Newswire release. Hess also said the milestone reflects the vision and generosity of Gulliver families, whose investment will expand opportunities for students.
A $100 Million Centennial Campaign
The construction is funded through The Next 100: The Centennial Campaign for Gulliver, which the school calls the largest philanthropic campaign in its history. The campaign has a fundraising goal of $100 million by 2030, and the school says it has raised more than $70 million toward that goal as of the groundbreaking. Gulliver says campaign funds will go toward educators, student programs and outcomes, and transformative learning environments, with the school describing its aim as becoming Miami's premier STEAM school and a national leader in future-ready education.
Gulliver recognized several entities as project partners: Cumming Group, Green Label Construction, Moss Construction Company, Stratus, the Village of Pinecrest, and Miami-Dade County. Early leadership gifts toward construction support came from the Komaransky, Buerstedde, Carlin, Sanford, Scarsini, and Tweddle families, while founding principals for a related teaching and learning initiative include the Belizan Blatt, Bhalla, Hu, Keller, MacKenzie, and McLaughlin families, along with Natalie and Taq Freeman and the Tayebati family.
A Century-Old School Still Expanding
Founded in 1926, Gulliver Prep now serves more than 2,200 students in grades PK-12 and employs over 500 faculty and staff, with a school community representing more than 50 countries and cultures, according to the same release. The school describes itself as a 501(c)(3) private, nonprofit, independent, coeducational, nonsectarian day school whose mission is to create an academically excellent community with a personal touch that fulfills each student's potential.
This isn't the first time Gulliver has added to its Upper School Campus footprint in recent years. The school held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a 21,500-square-foot Academic Building at the same campus in March 2024, as reported by Pinecrest Tribune / Community Newspapers. That building was the first space to open as part of Phase III of Gulliver's earlier Transformation. Together. 2026 capital campaign, and the school said at the time that its overall student-body size would remain the same even as facilities grew.
Architectural plans for the campus expansion, drawn up by Berenblum Busch Architecture, describe adding new buildings along a central pedestrian spine, with covered walkways, gardens, and inviting thresholds meant to tie the growing campus together. Gulliver has also described the STEAM Complex specifically as a cornerstone of The Next 100 campaign, which the school says strengthens exceptional teaching, student well-being, and future-ready learning environments, according to a separate announcement on the Gulliver Prep website.
