The Lowndes County School District may be months away from deciding on a location for the proposed career tech center, but the choices have been narrowed to two.
Those options were scheduled to be presented before the school board during Monday night’s meeting but the paperwork necessary to move forward has not yet been completed.
“The process in ongoing,” said Joey Henderson with JBHM Architects. “We’re now gathering the appraisals and we will then have to have those appraisals confirmed by a second appraiser. At that point, we will enter into negotiations. The appraisals are in process now and I do not foresee the appraisals, second appraisals and any negotiations, I don’t see all of that being completed by the December board meeting.”
Two properties are currently undergoing appraisals.
One is located on North Lehmberg Road. It is 12.69 acres and is offered by T.E. Lott and Co., which is asking $768,900 for the property.
Less than a mile down the road from the Lott site, the second property is located off Hwy. 50. It is 18 acres owned by Ralph Youngblood, who is asking for $472,000.
While the Lott property and the Youngblood property are the top two contenders, 10 parcels were originally considered for the career tech center.
The school board begin the search in May and advertised for a sites with a minimum of 10 acres. Henderson said his firm evaluated the properties based on safety, cost, environmental, soils, topography, size and shape accessibility, public services, utilities, location, availability and public acceptance.
The 10 properties were then whittled down to four by the school board.
Rhett Real Estate offered two separate properties for consideration: 10.1 acres off of Hwy. 12 for $400,000 and another 26.9 acres off Shelton Street near Sand Road and Highway 12 for $1,345,000.
Lott also offered two properties for sale: The 12.69 acres on Lehmberg Road was offered at $60,591 an acre and 11.44 acres located near Plantation Pointe was offered for $82,955 an acre.
Of the four, the board voted to pursue the 12.69 acres that Lott offered. The Youngblood property was originally offered at $28,000 an acre for 10 acres but was not selected because of it’s narrow shape, Henderson said.
Youngblood approached the board and said he had an additional eight acres adjacent to the 10 he originally offered he would sell for $24,000 an acre. At the November board meeting, school board members asked Henderson to evaluate the Lott property and the Youngblood property.
The Lott property currently lies in a flood plain. However, the offer to the school board is contingent upon Lott building up the area so it is above the flood plain. The dirt excavated for the elevation of the site would create a pond that could be used for classes, school officials have said. The site has all necessary utilities, Henderson said. The asking price includes the cost of building up the site.
The Youngblood property has no sewer line, according to Todd Gale with Columbus Light & Water. Intruding on the north border of the property is a two-acre cemetery. It’s unclear what effect, if any, the cemetery has on the suitability of the site.
The proposed career tech center is part of Phase Two in the district’s expansion plan. A construction date for the building has not yet been set.
While the Columbus Municipal School District has a vocational center, it is not open to students who attend school in the county. Superintendent Lynn Wright said he first proposed the idea of a countywide career tech center to give students options.
“There is such a need in the county,” Wright said. “With Lowndes County being the number one county in the state of Mississippi for industrial development, we want to be able to offer industry identified skill specific courses. New Hope campus is the only campus that offers robotics. If you’re at West Lowndes or Caledonia, those courses aren’t available to you. We just want to try to make opportunities available to all of our students that will help them in the long range and be prepared to go on to EMCC or a four-year university so when they advance to those schools, they will have skills they can build on or students will have employable skills and be prepared to enter the workforce.”
Wright said while the board may not vote on the proposed site Monday night, he feels they’re taking the necessary steps to make an informed decision.
“We want to make sure when we do this thing, we do it right,” he said. “Selecting the site is a real bug step and we want to make sure we’re dotting our Is and crossing our Ts. This could be a big plus for Lowndes County and we want to make sure that every step that we make on this is as informed a step it can be.”
Sarah Fowler covered crime, education and community related events for The Dispatch.
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