Property Committee members will recommend Jan. 4 that Vance Commissioners lease about two acres off Old County Home Road to the Henderson Collegiate Charter School.
In return for the temporary site that would allow classes for 100 freshmen to begin next August, the school would pay the County $1 a year for three years.
Charter School officials who met Thursday with the Property Committee included: Nancy Jo Smith, chairwoman of the board of directors; Dr. Cornelius Cathcart, a board member; and Eric Sanchez, co-founder and school planner.
A special use permit for education is needed from the Board of Adjustment to operate the school on Health Center Road.
The property is zoned Office & Institutional.
Sanchez said the school plans to add a grade a year through the eighth grade.
The first year, an 8,000-square-foot module containing four classrooms, a multi-purpose room and administrative offices would be placed on the site.
It is adjacent to what used to be Vance Manor, and is across the road from the Alcohol Rehabilitation Center.
A second module, which would have eight classrooms, would be added the next year, according to Sanchez.
In an Aug. 26 letter to County Manager Jerry Ayscue, Smith said the charter school’s board of directors hopes it will eventually become a tenant in the proposed Zene Street/REEF tobacco warehouse conversion project.
It was during the commissioners’ Oct. 5 meeting that the charter school officials sought use of the soon-to-be-closed Clark Street Elementary School building as a three-year site after it is abandoned at the end of this school year.
On Oct. 12, Vance School Board members claimed final say-so on the building’s fate after the doors shut.
Students will be moving from Clark Street over to the new elementary school on Garrett Road when it opens for business next August.
At the request of charter school officials, a meeting of the City of Henderson’s Land Planning Committee was cancelled recently.
The purpose of the meeting would have been to try to lease city property at William and Montgomery streets. It was the site of the old Vance Hotel.
Contact the writer at awheless@hendersondispatch.com.
