A week before the school division is set to present its proposal for a new middle school to the county’s board of supervisors, a local developer told the Williamsburg-James City County School Board he will be ready to present a different option in the next few weeks.
Chris Henderson, a developer with CBRE Inc., said Tuesday night he’s close to formally submitting an unsolicited proposal for the construction of a new middle school.
“The question is, are you prepared to consider a proposal like this?” Henderson said. “I don’t want to waste your time or mine.”
Plans drafted by Henderson became public in October. A draft of the plans at the time proposed the construction of a 650-seat middle school on a 115-acre tract on News Road near its intersection with Centerville Road in the county.
In an Oct. 17 email to Supervisors Kevin Onizuk (Jamestown), Mary Jones (Berkeley) and Michael Hipple (Powhatan), Henderson stated he was considering submitting the plan under the Public-Private Educational Facilities Infrastructure Act, which allows municipalities to accept unsolicited proposals from the private sector for public projects.
Henderson’s proposal has not yet been formally presented to the supervisors or school board.
The school board voted Oct. 21 to proceed with Superintendent Steven Constantino’s plan, presented two weeks prior, to build a 950-seat middle school at the James Blair administrative offices in two phases — with a 650-seat capacity ready by 2018 — at a total cost of more than $61 million.
After that meeting, Chairwoman Ruth Larson (Berkeley) told WYDaily she expected the School Liaison Committee to meet about the proposal before it was formally presented to the county’s supervisors. The committee — whose members include school board members Larson and Jim Kelly (Jamestown), the City of Williamsburg’s Mayor Clyde Haulman and Councilman Douglas Pons, and Supervisors Michael Hipple (Powhatan) and Kevin Onizuk (Jamestown) — has not met in the month since the board offered its endorsement of the two-phase plan for the James Blair site.
The supervisors and school board are scheduled for a joint work session Nov. 25, and Larson said she expected the current James Blair plan to be the focus of the conversation.
That plan is Constantino’s second proposal for a middle school at the James Blair site. The school board approved a plan last year to construct a 950-seat middle school in one phase, but Constantino was sent back to the drawing board after the board of supervisors declined to fund it.
The fourth middle school discussion has been plagued by setbacks in recent months, including disagreements on the viability of the James Blair site to support a school, cost concerns, and a county-created site selection committee that never produced a report.
The school division first recognized the need for a new middle school as early as 2008, and Constantino said in October a solution should have been determined “years ago.” The original timeline projected a new middle school being ready for the 2016-17 school year, but multiple delays have pushed that date back to 2018 at the earliest.
Henderson’s idea presents the possibility of additional delays. If the school board accepts a PPEA proposal from Henderson, it would open a 45-day period during which any party could submit a plan for a middle school. The board could ultimately choose any of the proposals or none of them.
Constantino and staff would have to examine the parcel’s viability for a middle school, while county staff would determine the larger effects of a building of that size on the surrounding area. If both determined the site to be a viable location for a school, the county would have to acquire it, as the site in Henderson’s idea is privately-held and the school board does not have the power to buy land.
Additionally, the board would have to address its current endorsement of the James Blair plan.
The supervisors’ work session is scheduled for 4 p.m. Nov. 25 in the Government Center Board Room.
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