Almost 10 years after the Clarke County School District first set out to find a new use for a long-vacant Black school off West Broad Street, the historic building still sits empty. And more than 10 years after Athens voters approved a $3.2 million SPLOST-funded youth center, it has yet to be built.
These two long-delayed projects could converge as Athens-Clarke County officials and the Athens Land Trust try to convince CCSD to hand over the West Broad School so it can be turned into a community center. Mayor Kelly Girtz, ACC Manager Blaine Williams and ALT Executive Director Heather Benham quietly met with the school board at a recent retreat to pitch the project.
“We’re looking forward to the collaboration,” Girtz told Flagpole. “It’s something that would honor the site, and we’ll see where it goes from here.”
The group proposed that CCSD lease the West Broad School to ACC for the community center. A site selection committee chose the school as its top site and recommended it to commissioners last year. Along with the $3.2 million from SPLOST 2011, the land trust has raised another $1 million and has said it can raise an additional $4 million in grants to renovate the school’s three buildings—one of which dates back to the 1930s, the other two built in the 1960s.
School board member Tim Denson, who served on the commission during discussions about the community center site, called the proposal “enticing” because it wouldn’t cost CCSD any money, and the district would retain ownership of the property. He also noted that the school, an important part of local Black history that has been vacant since the now-shuttered Rutland Academy moved in 2007, continues to deteriorate after two failed attempts at renovation by CCSD.
“We haven’t congealed around an idea yet, but I get the feeling we need to do something soon,” Denson said.
In 2016, former superintendent Philip Lanoue proposed turning the West Broad School into administrative offices, but that idea was abandoned due to lack of parking and community outcry over the loss of the ALT’s community garden and farmers market. Lanoue’s successor, Demond Means, put out a request for bids in 2018. The school board rejected the ALT’s proposal for a youth center there in favor of Means’ plan for an early learning center. However, the school board later backtracked and voted down that plan over concerns about historic preservation. Then-superintendent Xernona Thomas pivoted to putting the early learning center on the Eastside, at the old Gaines School. Current Superintendent Robbie Hooker has yet to make a proposal of his own.
“The goal was to open space for communication and clarifications, as it’s understandably a delicate topic,” BOE President LaKeisha Gantt said. “Currently, the board has not taken action on any proposed plan.”
ACC’s plan calls for a youth development center with a commercial kitchen, community garden, market pavilion and meeting rooms where both youth and adults can receive job training and small business support. It will also house the ALT’s Young Urban Builders and Young Urban Farmers programs, which train teenagers to work in construction and agriculture. The county commission awarded the ALT a contract to operate the facility after the Boys & Girls Club backed out of plans for a youth center on Vincent Drive. The commission also specified that the center should be located in the West Broad neighborhood, roughly bounded by Broad Street, Milledge Avenue, Baxter Street and Alps Road.
The next step, Girtz said, is for the school board to formally respond to the proposal, but there is no timetable for that to happen, according to Denson. If the offer is turned down, the search for a site will continue. Two others suggested by ACC’s site selection committee included Gresham’s disco and car lot, and a vacant lot at the end of Honeysuckle Drive.
“We are committed to seeing this project to fruition, because the community asked for it,” Benham said. “I’m confident that we’ll find a good site.”
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