The Commercial Appeal

Panel endorses WSHS renovation plan

- By Jennifer Pignolet

901-529-2372

A plan to renovate and expand White Station High School using private dollars cleared a hurdle Wednesday as the Shelby County Schools facilities committee batted around the idea and agreed to recommend full board approval.

The full board will vote Tuesday whether to give Richard Myers, a White Station parent and lawyer, the green light to begin raising funds.

Facilities committee chairman Billy Orgel reiterated several times during Wednesday’s meeting that the approval will be just conceptual. Myers needs to be able to raise money for more firm plans, but to raise money, must have at least preliminar­y support from the board.

“We’re not committing to anything,” Orgel said.

Myers’ plan is to create a blueprint for raising private money by promising naming rights that would be attached to individual constructi­on projects. Management of the project funds, contracts and constructi­on would all be done privately.

He said he’s looking at White Station as a trial run, but also has plans for Whitehaven High.

Wednesday’s meeting was the committee’s first chance to pick at the details of Myers’ plan. Board members asked, for example, why the need for individual nonprofits to be set up for each of the three projects planned at one school.

“There’s got to be someone taking the lead on each project,” Myers said.

Board chairwoman Teresa Jones expressed concern that the school district’s architects who usually work on the district’s constructi­on projects had not weighed in on the plans.

“I really have no way of vetting this without that,” she said.

Orgel noted Myers and his small team have kept the district in the loop from the beginning, working with facilities staff members and seeking input from community stakeholde­rs.

“This wasn’t a parent project like they’re doing landscapin­g,” he said.

Board member Chris Caldwell said he is in favor of the idea, which could free up public dollars for the district to spend on other projects. The district currently has a list of deferred maintenanc­e projects nearly a half-billion dollars long.

“The worst case is I think you’ll be the one who will have to turn around and start giving checks back to people if it doesn’t materializ­e,” Caldwell said to Myers.

Myers said the lack of public funding was one of his motivators for taking on this initiative over the past year.

“You can’t get grants to build buildings, so we’re going to have to do something different,” he said.

The plans for White Station call for a library learning center, which would give the outside of the building a face lift at the entrance, a revitalize­d green space in a central courtyard and a 10-classroom addition. Firm prices are still in the works, but the preliminar­y estimate for the library was about $1.6 million, Myers said.

Board member Kevin Woods noted how the district handles this opportunit­y will dictate many future relationsh­ips with the private sector moving forward, so the board will have to tread carefully.

He also said the board will have to have a say further down the road about who is able to put their name on a public space, even though the school’s naming-rights policy allows for it in general.

“It may be something or someone or some entity that the board does not want to support,” he said.

Myers said he agreed final say would always have to come from the school district.

“A robust dialogue with Shelby County Schools is absolutely necessary in order for us to proceed,” he said.

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