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HUNTINGTON ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” As the new Meadows Elementary School opens to students and staff this fall, several parties have shown interest in obtaining the lease for the former building at 1601 Washington Blvd.
Members of Kingdom Life Fellowship Church in Nitro have attended several meetings over the past couple of months to ask the board to use the location for providing food, day care and job opportunities, among other services.
Autism Services Center has also requested the building in previous meetings to extend its programming, and the City of Huntington has expressed interest.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œIÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™m not ready at this point to bring, in the foreseeable future, probably within the next year or two, an item to declare that a surplus property,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Superintendent Tim Hardesty told the Cabell County Board of Education during a regular meeting Tuesday.
The reason, he said, is the former Meadows building is still in ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œreally nice shape,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ and there are facility issues at the part of the Central Office Building where Crossroads Academy, the countyÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s alternative school, is currently located.
Among the buildingÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s issues, itÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s not ADA-compliant and is currently in need of a new roof, according to Hardesty.
Hardesty said itÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s also been an idea to move both the countyÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s maintenance department and Crossroads into the Cabell County Career Technology Center once the Woody Williams Center for Advanced Learning and Careers at the Huntington Mall is complete.
Deputy Superintendent Justin Boggs said the CTE school will be substantially complete by late fall or early winter of this year, although students and staff will be able to move to the new building in December.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œI donÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t think itÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s a good use of public tax dollars to re-roof a building that you donÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t know how long youÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™re going to stay in,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Hardesty told The Herald-Dispatch following TuesdayÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s meeting.
While the former Meadows property is not ADA-compliant, the current career technology center is. If the move happens, the maintenance department would be transferred into the building first, and Hardesty said moving Crossroads in might need to happen a couple years from now.
For that reason, he thought moving Crossroads into the former Meadows building temporarily could be a solution.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œItÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s sitting there. ItÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s ready. So weÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™re getting ready to take all of the elementary supplies out of it,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Hardesty said.
He said the countyÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s safety manager went through the building, and itÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s in ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œnice shape.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œOne of the things we want to make sure we do is we provide our students at Crossroads with a space for learning that they deserve and they need. And so it would be, not a long-term solution, but it would be a stop gap to prevent us from having to spend well over a million dollars to put a roof on a facility that we may only use for another year, year and a half,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ he said.
According to Boggs, Meadows students and staff will be able to move into the new facility at 1 Wildcat Way this fall for the 2025-26 school year. At that time, the building will become vacant, and Crossroads can move in.
The public ribbon-cutting for the new Meadows Elementary School will be 1 p.m. Aug. 11.
The board will have its next regular meeting Tuesday, Aug. 5.
Katelyn Aluise is an education and court reporter.
