Town Parks & Rec Director Steve Fraher outlined the plan for the Town Board Tuesday. (David Boraks photo)

(Updated Sept. 25, 2008, 10:30 a.m.)

By DAVID BORAKS
DavidsonNews.net

After piecing together $4 million in funding commitments, the Town Board Tuesday gave the go-ahead for Davidson to join Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools in a $7.6 million project to renovate and expand Davidson IB Middle School on South Street for use as a school and town recreation center.

Davidson United Methodist Church and Mecklenburg County Parks & Recreation also will be partners in the project. It would provide badly needed improvements at the aging school, renovate the existing auditorium, convert the existing gym to a cafeteria and add a gymnasium and space for town recreation programs.

“This is an important step for us, one that’s been under way for many years,” Mayor John Woods told commissioners just before the vote.

Specifically, Tuesday night’s 5-0 Town Board vote authorizes the town staff to negotiate joint-use agreements with CMS and the Methodist church and establishes a $4 million budget for the town’s share of the project.

(Also Tuesday, the board again deferred a vote on a revised master plan for the Summer’s Walk subdivision. The approval is needed to clear the way for Mecklenburg County to buy and preserve a 90-acre wetlands area. But the town and developer Forest City Partners still have not reached an agreement on how much the developer should have to contribute toward town services under the town’s adequate public facilities ordinance.)

The project would add a gymnasium and offices (top) on a field next to the school and convert the existing gym (right) to a cafeteria.

The vote gives CMS the signal from the town it needs to move ahead with the project. It clarifies the fate of the old school, which was formerly the Davidson Elementary School. And it brings Davidson a step closer to fulfilling a project that has been on the town’s wish list for nearly three decades.

“I’ve been here 11 years. … This has been discussed the entire time that I’ve been here. … So this is a huge step for the town and for the Davidson Parks & Recreation Department,” said Steve Fraher, Davidson’s Parks & Recreation director.

Board member Brian Jenest said the decision was a historic step. “As long as I’ve lived here, we’ve been talking about a community center. Never did I imagine that we would get a community center in the heart of our community,” he said just before the board vote.

PLANNING BEGINS TONIGHT

The IB school would close during the 2009-10 school year; when it reopens in 2010, it would continue to house the popular international baccalaureate program for about 250 students in grades 6-8 and also house programs of both Davidson Parks & Recreation and the church.

With the Town Board vote complete, attention now turns to the next step in the process, a two-day planning workshop that starts tonight (Wednesday) at 6 p.m. to gather citizen input and begin designing the site.

Preliminary plans call for modernizing outdated heating, cooling and other systems; renovating the old auditorium; and converting the existing separate gymnasium building into a cafeteria. On the open field to the north of the school, a new community center and gymnasium would be built.

Altogether, the school would grow in size from about 37,350 square feet to 68,820 square feet. (To download the preliminary site plan as a PDF, CLICK HERE>)

Residents who live near the school have already raised concerns about some project details, including CMS proposals to cut trees in a heavily wooded area at the back of the school property and to reroute bus traffic to the school along Hillside Drive via a new street connection. Hillside is currently a dead end. (See more in our May 14 article, “Town, CMS consider joint IB school project.”; see also resident Bob Cumming’s latest comment on the subject.)

SHARED FUNDING, FACILITY

The entire project is expected to cost $7.6 million. In recent months, it has been unclear how the town might pay for the project itself or line up funding from other sources. Town officials batted around the idea of a bond referendum, but ruled that out when they passed the 2008-9 budget in June.

But since summer, town staff and town board members have been at work behind the scenes trying to find partners to help pay for the town’s share.

Here’s how the money adds up:

• CMS already has $3.6 million in bond funding for its share. The district had been prepared to go forward only with renovations if the town did not come up with another $4 million to build the community center portion of the project.
• $1. 5 million from Mecklenburg County Parks & Recreation, pending voter approval of a park & rec bond issue on Nov. 4.
• $1 million from the Methodist Church, which would sign a 20-year lease, renewable for up to 50 years total, to use public spaces for church programs.
• $1.5 million more, which Mayor John Woods says would include about $500,000 from the Town of Davidson, and another $1 million in yet to be announced “private pledges.” The town’s money would come from the town’s long-term capital improvements budget, which Mr. Fraher said is already in place and would not require a tax increase. (CLARIFICATION: The amount of the town’s contribution was revised 9/25, 10:30 a.m., based on information from Mayor Woods about the possibility of additional private funding.)

One other unanswered question has been how the town might pay for furniture, fixtures and ongoing maintenance. Mr. Fraher said Tuesday the town would use $370,000 that developers have paid in recent years to satisfy the adequate public facilities ordinance, or APFO. The APFO requires developers to pay into a fund to help the town cover expenses that come with growth, including public safety and recreational needs.

PUSHING FOR PARKS BOND

First, voters must approve the county parks & recreation bond, which is on the Nov. 4 ballot. In hopes of winning support from north Mecklenburg residents, county parks officials added the IB school project and other north Meck projects to the bond package this summer.

Jim Mead, who lives on Cathey Street near the IB school, said he’s glad the project is going forward, since it resolves the question about what might happen to the building. But he also warned board members to be wary about allowing costs to escalate. “Is $4 million what we’re going to limit our expenditures to?” He cited the example of the NASCAR museum in Charlotte, where the City Council this week approved an additional $32 million in unanticipated new funding.

Town Board member Laurie Venzon said she has talked with CMS officials and that the system has a track record of  completing projects like this one on time and under budget.

She also noted that the project depends on voter approval of the county parks bonds. She said the town should be prepared to revisit and even scale back the project if the bond issue fails and the county funds aren’t there.

“It’s important that the public understands that a majority of this is being paid for by outside sources. So if those outside sources don’t come through, as a town we cannot step and fill those,” Ms. Venzon said.

Added Mayor Woods: “We will go into this with a fixed amount… it’s going to have to build what it’s going to have to build.”

Town Board Member Bill Johnson said during the meeting he’s behind the project but he warned that the town will need to keep from losing sight of other needs as it spends money on this major project.

“This is a very financially feasible project,” Mr. Johnson said. “The challenges I see are that we continue to keep our eye on other needs that the community has identified,” including sidewalks, greenways, parks and street repairs.

Davidson United Methodist pastor the Rev. Jody Seymour told the board the church is excited about becoming a partner with the town. The church will contribute $1 million.

He also urged the town to “work hard to engage the West Side community in understanding this project and understanding how it can help them, as well as the whole community.”

CHURCH JOINS; EXPANSION TO COME?

The Davidson United Methodist Church Board of Stewards gave the project a big boost when it voted Sunday provide $1 million in funding and become a partner. Church officials said the deal would solve the church’s own space crunch, at least temporarily.

“We’re excited about this partnership. I think it has a lot of creativity to it,” the Rev. Jody Seymour, pastor of DUMC, told the board. He said it would help the church deal with a need for more space, and avoid the only good option it had, which would be to build another building in its parking lot.

He said the Board of Stewards also saw the project as a chance to be involved in something that benefits the whole community. “They were excited to be in partnership with you and be a player in the community, knowing that we’re involved in something that would not only help us, but serve the community.”

But the Rev. Seymour also said the project would not be a permanent solution to the church’s space needs. He said the church likely would come back to the Town Board in some time the future with a request to build on the site of three houses it owns across South Street from the IB school.

“One of the options for us is to build a building across the street from the school, that optimizes the space we will be using in the community center, because quite frankly, one of the hesitancies (is) the space that you offer us is wonderful space but it doesn’t really meet all of the needs that we have. In fact, it leaves off some critical things,” the Rev. Seymour said. “This (the community center) was very attractive to us because it’s sort of phase I of a couple of other phases. … Since we are really willing to partner with you … we really are hoping you will be willing to partner with us when the time comes that we have to look at some of the buildings next to the street.”

NOTE: Town Manager Leamon Brice, who has been working closely on the IB School project, was absent from Tuesday’s meeting. Mayor John Woods announced at the meeting’s start that Mr. Brice is away because of the death of his father, Leamon Brice Jr., in Fairmont, N.C. A funeral is planned today at 3:30 at First Presbyterian Church, Fairmont. Read the death notice in the Fayetteville Observer.

DOCUMENTS

Sept. 24, 2008, Davidson United Methodist Church note to membership explaining Board of Stewards decision to join the project.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE

Sept. 19, 2008, “Methodist Church agrees to join rec center project”

Sept. 12, 2008, “Planning workshop Sept. 24-25 for IB School project”

Sept. 3, 2008, “Bond package would help fund rec center, other projects”

May 28, 2008, DavidsonNews.net, “Board studies rec center plan, but hurdles remain.”

May 14, 2008, DavidsonNews.net, “Town, CMS consider joint IB school project”