Lemmon, who specialized in the design of public schools and big churches, took advantage of the location of the former high school, on axis with Stilwell Boulevard and backing up to the ship channel, to transform it into a civic tour de force. He designed a new central pavilion, three stories tall, focused on a five-bay, cast-stone frontispiece, and capped by a staged cupola that resolutely marks one end of the cross axis and gives the school a surprising degree of visual prominence from Gillham Circle. The complex was restructured between 2008 and 2011 to become the School of the Arts. Smith and Company of Houston was the architect.