LEWISTON — After being shut down by the Catholic Diocese of Portland last year, St. Dominic Regional High School will reopen next fall as a private catholic school in the historic Peck Building on Main Street in the city where the school was founded.

The announcement was made Tuesday morning during a news conference in the iconic four-story building in front of a couple dozen alumni and parents.

“This affords us the opportunity to return St. Dominic Regional High School to its earliest urban Lewiston roots,” said Susan Barton-Young, the secretary of the St. Dominic Regional High School group behind the effort.

Jason Levesque, former Auburn mayor and the owner of the building he renamed the Peck Center, said he was skeptical when the idea to move St. Dom’s into his building was suggested. After studying the idea with his board, he thought it had the infrastructure to make it work.

“It became crystal clear from technology, to security, to location, to parking, to just this facility being able to help foster that growth in education,” said Levesque, who has a daughter who was supposed to attend St. Dom’s as a senior before it closed. “It’s a match made in heaven, by saints, for Saints.”

The school will be on the second and third floors, which contain more than 30,000 square feet of space. When it opens next fall for the 2026-27 school year, officials expect an enrollment of 80 students.

That is expected to grow to 140 in four years, with a long-term goal of 180 students.

Tuition for the first year is slated to be $14,500. Leaders of the effort hope to begin accepting students for the 2026-27 school year as soon as next week.

As soon as the head of schools is hired, that person will begin hiring faculty, developing curriculum and begin holding open houses.

The new St. Dom’s will not be part of the diocese, but a private faith-based school.

“We have been in touch with the diocese throughout this process, and most recently they have expressed they have no opposition to our attempts to start a high school division,” Barton-Young said. “I will note, however, that we are fully independent from the diocese, and they will have no part in determining our curriculum or our path forward.”

The opportunity came one month after the diocese said it would move St. Dominic Academy, its preK-8 school, from its Holy Cross campus in Lewiston to the former St. Dom’s high school campus on Gracelawn Road in Auburn.

With that door shut, supporters seeking to reopen the high school began searching for other options.

St. Dom’s first opened in Lewiston in 1941 in a building on Bates Street. It moved to the newly built high school in Auburn in 2002.

Bishop James Ruggieri decided last March to close the high school at the end of the 2024-25 school year after 84 years, citing low enrollment and operating losses going back several years.

Parents, alumni and other supporters first tried to work with the diocese to keep the high school campus in Auburn operating for a “bridge year” to allow time to raise funds and create the operating structure needed to take the school over as a private catholic high school.

When that effort failed, a board that was quickly created to save the high school explored the possibility of opening the school at a different location, with the Prince of Peace Parish in Lewiston agreeing to potentially accommodate the St. Dom’s high school at Holy Family School.

But it was determined by the board that projected fundraising and tuition revenue were too much of a risk to maintain solvency for the entire year.

When the high school closed in 2025, enrollment had dropped to 137 students. The diocese has said it lost $2.5 million between 2020 and 2025 operating the school.

Supporters continued their efforts to reopen a catholic high school and Tuesday morning confirmed the new school and its location.

Located in the heart of downtown Lewiston, the Peck Building built in 1899 and housed B. Peck & Co., the area’s flagship department store for more than 80 years before it closed in 1981. L.L. Bean then operated a call center in the building for 32 years before it closed in 2021 during the pandemic.

It now houses the Androscoggin County district attorney’s offices on one floor.

Officials who spoke Tuesday, including Lewiston City Manager Bryan Kaenrath, said the return of St. Dom’s to this location would serve as a cornerstone for the rebirth of downtown Lewiston.