Botetourt County GIS
“Today is a special day,” School Superintendent John Busher told the School Board this morning (Thursday). Elementary school students in the Blue Ridge community are on the way to finally having a new school— perhaps as early as the start of school in August 2020.
The Botetourt School Board voted 4-0 to approve two resolutions at a called special meeting this morning (Thursday) related to issuing bonds for up to $22.5 million for a new school that will replace Colonial Elementary School.
The board meeting followed a Botetourt Economic Development Authority (EDA) meeting Wednesday afternoon when the EDA agreed to a purchase option on almost 27 acres that belong to H. Forest and Pejie Murray at 142 Murray Drive, Troutville, the site of the proposed new school. Should the sale be finalized, the EDA will purchase the property for $1.1 million.
The first School Board resolution authorizes the school administration to issue a request for proposals (RFP) for an architectural and engineering study on the Murray property, and the second authorizes the administration to apply to be included in the next Virginia Public School Authority (VPSA) bond issue for construction money. The later is subject to a successful outcome from the architectural and engineering review of the site.
Another piece of property that was acquired in late 2010 by the School Board for a new Blue Ridge area elementary school at Jack Smith Industrial Park near the intersection of US 460 and Alt. 220 will likely revert to Botetourt County, perhaps as use for small industrial sites.
For years, the School Board and administration have wanted to build a new school to replace the now 79-year-old Colonial Elementary School.
An effort that got started more than a dozen years ago stalled during the economic downturn. It was a bit revitalized when the School Board wound up with the site at the Jack C. Smith Industrial Park, but county finances kept the work from moving forward.
More recently, the school division has been in the process of using a School Energy Performance Contract that allows the school division to make $6.3 million in school building upgrades through energy savings.
Only limited work on Colonial Elementary is included in those upgrades in anticipation of moving forward with building a new school.
School Board Chair Michelle Crook called it a “happy day and an historic day.”
Busher said the school division has an aggressive time-line if the school will open for the 2020-21 school year. The application for the spring VPSA bond issue is Monday, Feb. 26.
Blue Ridge District School Board member Scott Swortzel led a staff meeting Thursday afternoon to tell staff about the proposal to build the new school.
Colonial school parents and the community are being invited to a meeting about the new school Thursday, March 1 at 7 p.m. at Colonial Elementary.
The School Board, Board of Supervisors and EDA will hold a joint public hearing on the new school Thursday, March 29 at 7 p.m. at Lord Botetourt High School.
Busher said the school division hopes to start construction this winter. That would allow about a-year-and-a-half for construction.
He said getting to the point where the school division can consider the new school has been a collaborative effort between the School Board, Board of Supervisors and EDA. He called the collaboration “The Botetourt Way.”
Colonial was built in 1939 as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Great Depression. It was one of 45,000 schools built around the country under the New Deal.
The school had renovations and/or additions in 1949, 1969, 1975 and 1985 when the gym was added.
The purchase option on the property has to be exercised by May 2.
The EDA also approved issuing an RFP to get the cost for “mass earth moving” on the property, and EDA Chair John Kilby appointed EDA members John Williamson III and John Alderson, who also sits on the School Board, to represent the EDA on the school construction committee.
Board of Supervisors Chair Jack Leffel was at the called School Board meeting. He noted that when he was on the School Board, the subject of a new school came up during Swortzel’s first meeting as the Blue Ridge representative. Leffel said the subject of a new school in Blue Ridge “has been rectified today.”
The School Board will still have to approve a bond issue and request the Board of Supervisors to do the same.
By EDWIN McCoy
edmccoy@ourvalley.org
