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School board picks new sites for offices, Career Center
Journal file photo
Kennedy Learning Center
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Published: June 24, 2009
Updated: 06/24/2009 01:13 pm
If the county commissioners approve, the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system's administrative offices will move into a building on the north side of town once occupied by Sara Lee Underwear, and the Career Center will move to Kennedy Learning Center.
On Tuesday, the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education voted to buy for $7.1 million a 105,000 square-foot building at 475 Corporate Square Drive used by Sara Lee Underwear before Sara Lee Corp. consolidated many of its operations at the Oak Summit campus.
The board also voted to buy for $2.5 million a nearby 67,000 square-foot building at 4801 Bethania Station Road owned by Hanesbrands, which spun off from Sara Lee Corp. in 2006.
Most administrative offices would go into the Corporate Square Building, and the school board would meet there. The Bethania Station building would house the school system's print shop and staff-development programs and also be used for storage.
The Forsyth County Commissioners would have to approve the purchase.
The school system is moving both its administrative offices and the Career Center on Miller Street so that Forsyth Technical Community College can expand.
The new Career Center will be located on the campus of Kennedy Middle School. Kennedy Middle will remain there, and new buildings will be added for both the Career Center and Carter Vocational High School.
"That whole campus will be transformed," said Darrell Walker, the school system's assistant superintendent for operations.
The new Career Center is scheduled to open by July 1, 2011. The administrative offices are scheduled to be in the new location by July 1, 2010.
In November, voters approved a $62 million bond package that would enable the school system to move its administrative offices and build a new Career Center and for Forsyth Tech to renovate the spaces and use them for classrooms and labs.
Walker said that school officials looked at a number of existing buildings and also considered building a new building. In the end, they decided that it would be best to renovate an existing building.
"Why build a new building if we have all these empty buildings?" he said. "We wanted to be good stewards."
Also, renovating an existing building would cost less than building a new one, he said.
Gayle Anderson, the president and chief executive officer of the Greater Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce, said that it would have been nice to have had the administrative offices downtown but that she understands why the board made the choice it did.
Including renovations, the total cost of the project is expected to be between $11.4 million and $12.2 million. Any bond money left over from the administrative-offices project would go toward the Career Center project.
The new locations would give the school system significantly more administrative space. The administrative offices on Miller Street have about 90,000 square feet.
"We're going to get two-thirds more space," Walker said.
The extra space would enable the school system to consolidate administrative staff by moving administrators based elsewhere to the new location, Walker said.
Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
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