Land transferred for school offshoot

HOT SPRINGS — The city has transferred land where the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts will open its first new academic facility in more than 25 years to the University of Arkansas System, according to a quitclaim deed filed with the Garland County circuit clerk’s office.

The Hot Springs Board of Directors authorized a transfer or long-term lease of the land at 200 Whittington Ave. in September 2017, soon after the school broke ground on the $4.7 million Creativity and Innovation Complex expected to be completed this year.

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts is a residential high school for 11th- and 12th-graders focusing on math, science and the arts. It is one of 15 public residential high schools that specializes in the education of academically strong students who have an interest and aptitude for mathematics and science as well as a passion for creativity and the arts. The school is part of the UA System.

The authorizing resolution the Hot Springs board adopted stipulated the property would be conveyed 30 days after the start of construction and conditioned on construction being completed by the end of 2018 or “a reasonable time thereafter.” The resolution called for a 99-year lease paying the city $1 a year if the University of Arkansas board of trustees decided not to accept title to the land. Acceptance of title is expected to be on the agenda of the trustees’ Jan. 30-31 meeting at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.