Classic New Deal-Era Carlsbad Middle School to See Upgrade Work

Design work is expected to begin next year on a project seeing the remodeling of a long-standing middle school in Carlsbad.

Located at 800 W. Church Street, the brick P.R. Leyva Middle School was built in 1940 with support from the New Deal’s Public Works Administration and measures around 170,000 square feet.

Officials with the Carlsbad Municipal School District have long contended that the structure, also known as the Carlsbad Intermediate School, is in need of a general upgrade. That upgrade is primarily in response to the district’s continued enrollment growth: built for around 600 students, the P.R. Leyva school last spring housed nearly 850 students.

That upgrade has gone from the talking stage to the reality stage with the passage this spring of a $300 million bond mostly targeting the construction of a new high school, but with $84 million allotted for work on P.R. Leyva.

Built at a cost of $300,000, the school was regarded as the ultimate in modern educational facilities upon its openings and hailed by the Carlsbad Current-Argus for a design that included “light brick, trimmed in ornamental stone and tile, and glass brick.”

If all goes as anticipated, the upgrade work on P.R. Leyva could begin sometime in 2026.

By Garry Boulard
​Image Credit: Courtesy of Unsplash

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