LAPLACE — Each year, Dr. Courtney Millet listens to the St. Charles Catholic High School valedictorians deliver their speeches as they bid farewell to the teachers, the administration and the staff.

All talk about how much they will miss their alma mater, and a lot of them say the same thing.

“They all say, ‘I’m going to miss this blue tin building,’” said Millet, the school’s director of instruction and institutional advancement.

They won’t get to say that anymore.

In just a few weeks, the 38-year-old building located in the heart of LaPlace will undergo an extensive $5.7 million renovation, which will create a whole new look to its façade.

The first thing visitors will see is a new pair of entrances to the school, complete with updated security features. The project also will include a new conference room, expansion of the commons and cafeteria areas, renovations to the gymnasium, conversion of the current chapel into a computer lab and the construction of a brand new stand-alone chapel.

In addition, the blue tin exterior will be replaced with stucco and brick.

The project, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2017, will go out for bids next week.

It’s all overdue, said Millet, who, along with her husband, is a 1984 graduate of the school.

“We have always wanted to (do this),” she said. “We all knew the facility needed to be upgraded. We’ve been working on that for years, a little at a time. We just knew it was time to do the whole school. So, we went to the Archbishop and they did agree to help fund a firm to see if we would be able to raise that kind of money. And we were.”

Most of the improvement projects over the years have been directed by school advisory board president Louis Authement, who believes St. Charles Catholic is often overlooked by parents seeking a private school education for their children.

“We are doing this to preserve St. Charles Catholic High School as the Christian-based high school for the River Parishes,” said Authement, who graduated from E.D. White High School in Thibodaux, but has sent all four of his sons to be Comets. “It moved to LaPlace in 1978 to serve the three river parishes, but because of its deficiencies, it may have been overlooked in favor of the big city schools. This will bring a whole new dimension to the school.”

Authement said he expects to see a bump in enrollment once the project is completed.

“That will naturally happen,” he said. “We certainly will be more appealing than we have been in the past, but one of our distinguishing features is, we are a small to middle school.”

The project is being funded through a United in Faith capital campaign, which launched in March of 2014, along with a loan from the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Millet said the school went all out in soliciting donations.

“It has come from everywhere,” she said. “The alumni, families of the alumni, even alumni of the original school in Destrehan. People have just been so supportive.”

Authement, who is serving as fundraising co-chair, said all 14 Catholic parishes in the River Parishes have contributed in some way.

“I think that’s the biggest feather in our cap,” Authement said. “We rallied all 14 church parishes around our school. I think that says something.”

The biggest boost to the campaign came from one of its oldest alums. Jake Giardina, class of 1955 and a member of the LSU Hall of Distinction, is a Thibodaux businessman and founder of Cane Machinery & Engineering Company, which evolved into Cameco Industries.

Giardina offered the St. Charles Parents’ Campaign a $100,000 challenge grant, offering to match any funds raised up to $100,000.

“We matched it and earned the full grant,” Millet said, adding nearly 500 families are participating and have raised $1.45 million in commitments.

The additional funds will allow the project to include a completely new chapel instead of just renovations to the old one.

The new chapel, which will be constructed behind the school, will seat 100 and will enable entire classes or even the football team to assemble at the same time. The current chapel seats only 25-30.

Millet said the chapel furnishings are not included in the project. The school is soliciting donations of everything from liturgical books to pews to statues.

“We have a wish list,” Millet said. “We have already received some donations in honor of family members.”

The original St. Charles School began in 1929 in Destrehan. The high school was founded in 1948 under the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. The Archdiocese decided to break the high school away from St. Charles Borromeo in 1977 and opened the current building on Sept. 18, 1978.