Charles E. Tennant had a vision of a school that would show black kids how to be proud of their history and themselves. Yesterday, as he stood at the bustling construction site of Columbus City Schools' new Africentric Early College K-12 campus on the East Side, one might have assumed that his vision had surpassed his wildest dreams. But that was not the case, said Tennant. The $39.3 million campus is pretty much what he envisioned all along.

Charles E. Tennant had a vision of a school that would show black kids how to be proud of their history and themselves.

Yesterday, as he stood at the bustling construction site of Columbus City Schools' new Africentric Early College K-12 campus on the East Side, one might have assumed that his vision had surpassed his wildest dreams.

But that was not the case, said Tennant. The $39.3 million campus is pretty much what he envisioned all along.

"I am a firm believer in God," said Tennant, 71. "I am very patient. And I knew that they would eventually get a new one."

Construction crews stopped their excavators and dump trucks for a few minutes yesterday so that Mayor Michael B. Coleman and other officials could commemorate the project's long road to fruition.

Superintendent Dan Good said, "As these large machines prepare this site for a building that will rise up from a foundation anchored in these soils, I get even more excited about the potential harvest that will come in the seasons ahead."

In 1993, when Tennant was a vocational-education teacher at Walnut Ridge High School, a counselor showed him a nine-week grade chart.

"I saw a bunch of F's," Tennant said. "There were 2,300 F's for 520 black kids over there. And I looked at them, and most of those bad grades came from attendance, kids missing about 50 percent of the time."

Tennant decided he needed to do something. He went to the school board with a proposal for a school that would focus on the history, cultures, contributions and values of African people.

"I wanted to teach kids their rich heritage, where they came from, and what Africa was, and what it stood for thousands of years ago," he said. "And once they get to know that, they can become stronger inside, they can become confident and do great things.

"I have always been an advocate for African-American history. I've even taught it. And I've always wanted African-Americans to understand their history and not be ashamed of it. And this is what I did, and now we're here after 21 years."

The school's curriculum is infused with the Africentric principles of "Nguzo Saba and Ma'at," or balance, harmony, justice, order, reciprocity, righteousness and truth, according to its website.

Tennant said he deliberately pushed for the controversial location of the current Africentric school, the former Mohawk Middle School in German Village, because he knew the I-70/71 interchange would one day encroach on the site, requiring a new building.

The new site is 52 acres, more than double the Mohawk site and the second-largest campus in the district behind Fort Hayes. Africentric will be the first brand-new, full-service high school built by the district since Mifflin High opened in 1977.

The school was controversial from the start, seen by some in the community as a return to segregation for a district that had been ordered to desegregate. But the school board unanimously agreed on the concept, and the school opened in the fall of 1996.

Then, in 2010, the city of Columbus bought the land of the former Woodland Meadows housing development, a crime haven that had been demolished by the city after going into foreclosure. The city swapped the land for the district's Reeb Elementary School, 280 Reeb Ave., to develop the school into a South Side community center.

"This is really a good thing for the Columbus school system to have the Africentric campus here," Coleman said. Woodland Meadows "used to be a problem, this used to be an issue. But now it's going to be a glorious thing for education."

After the ceremony, the machines sprang back into action. A dump truck squeezed past the spot where officials had stood shortly before, and workers loaded it with tree trunks. An excavator resumed taking up an old street, and crews continued assembling a chain-link fence around the site.

The new school is scheduled to open in early 2016 with the district's biggest indoor sports venue, a 2,000-plus-seat competition "field house" for the school's accomplished basketball teams. That's enough seats to accommodate more than double the 1,000 students the school is designed to hold.

It's planned to have four locker rooms, a weight room and a 94-foot basketball court, which is the length of an NBA court and 10 feet longer than most high-school courts. Because of its size, officials decided the field house shouldn't be attached to the school building, which will house students in pre-kindergarten through high school.

The field house will connect to a football-stadium complex designed to seat 1,500 home spectators and 500 visitors. Surrounding the football field will be a 400-meter running track.

District officials didn't want to dwell on the sports facilities yesterday. They focused on the 139,500-square-foot academic building. Sprawling two-story buildings will house 22 elementary-school classrooms, 10 middle-school classrooms and 12 high-school classrooms. The schools will have a gymnasium separate from the field house.

bbush@dispatch.com