And Room to Grow: The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system has pieces in place for its expansion plans

With the selection of a new site for the school system's administrative offices, Forsyth Technical Community College can move ahead with its plans to expand.

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 -- both properties are on Miller Street -- and for Forsyth Tech to renovate the spaces and use them for classrooms and labs.

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. It was used by Sara Lee Underwear before Sara Lee Corp. consolidated many of its operations at its 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.

Both are owned by Hanesbrands, which spun off from Sara Lee Corp. in 2006. Forsyth County commissioners will have to approve the purchase. The commissioners could vote on the proposal as early as July 20. The board had already decided to build the new Career Center on the campus of Kennedy Learning Center. LEAP Academy will remain there, and new buildings will be added for the Career Center and Carter Vocational High School.

LEAP was set up in 1996 to help students who have been held back move up to the next grade.

"That whole campus will be transformed," said Darrell Walker, the school system's assistant superintendent for operations.

Donny Lambeth, the chairman of the school board, said yesterday that although he would have preferred a new building near downtown for the school system's new administrative offices, renovating existing buildings was the better choice.

"We looked at a number of properties all across the county," Lambeth said. "The deciding factor came down to cost."

Renovating the two buildings should save at least $2 million and perhaps as much as $3.2 million, he said. 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, which already has $25 million in the bond money set aside for it.

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.

Although cost was the primary factor in the board's decision, a couple of other factors also came into play, Lambeth said. The site has plenty of parking, something that has, at times, been a problem at the current location.

And, given that so many buildings in the community were available, it seemed better to use one of them than to build a new one, he said.

Walker made a similar point.

"Why build a new building if we have all these empty buildings?" he said. "We wanted to be good stewards."

Two county commissioners said yesterday that it looks as though the school system got a good deal.

"They say they are going to use the savings for technological advances ,and that is great," Commissioner Ted Kaplan said.

Commissioner Debra Conrad predicts that some parents won't like the Career Center move to Kennedy because it might mean a longer drive for students. But Conrad said that the pick for a new headquarters for the school system is fine.

"I think it is a good idea that they are utilizing an existing building," she 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 she understands the reason for the board's choice.

Some people worried that the new location would be less accessible than the current one, Lambeth said. Officials found that although it would mean driving a few more miles for some people, the site is near U.S. 52 and is accessible by public transportation.

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 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.

He said that the extra space would enable the school system to consolidate the administrative staff by moving administrators based elsewhere to the new site.

■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.

■ Journal reporter Wes Young contributed to this story.

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