Wall Padding, Netting and Basketball Systems for Metropolitan Prep Academy

Written by Ryan Wilby | Mar 10, 2020 6:15:00 AM

Founded in 1982, Metropolitan Preparatory Academy began as a mission to encourage educators to have a profound impact on the lives of the students they teach. While the academy is private in nature, it operates differently than other schools like it. With a mission to provide a safe, inclusive and inviting atmosphere, Metropolitan Prep Academy does not require students to wear uniforms, unlike many other established private schools in the Toronto area.

The school operates as both a middle and secondary school, serving approximately 100 students across grades seven through twelve. Besides encouraging academic excellence, the school is also home to an impressive athletics department. Known as the Predators, the school has teams in football, cross country, soccer, basketball, golf, hockey and many others.

As part of some upcoming upgrades, the school reached out to our team during the fall of 2019 as they were busy planning the final stages of the renovation to their multi-purpose gymnasium space. Used primarily for basketball, the space was in need of some equipment and safety upgrades and leaned on us to provide recommendations and design ideas for the space.

Working closely with our partners at Ash-Stevenson, we were quickly on-site to assess the space and take detailed measurements to determine exactly what was required in the space. After a quick walk through, our team was able to establish what the space required in terms of safety padding and was also able to recommend basketball systems that would be easily installed in the existing space.

Given the expected traffic of the space, safety padding was important. We planned out enough padding to be placed below the newly-installed wall-mounted backstop, as well as other key areas including some customized corner padding to ensure no participants were at risk for injury.

Following that, a small netting system was also designed and installed to keep balls and other objects in play.

Today, the space is heavily used and marks another successful project not only with our partners in the Toronto area but also with one of the regions most recognized educational institutions.

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