Contract Awarded for Palisades Park Elementary School and Park on York Road
Recently, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board approved a $12,936,000 contract for a new elementary school and neighborhood park on part of a 110-acre parcel on York Road across from the entrance to McDowell Nature Preserve.
The contract was awarded to the lowest responsive bidder, Clancy & Theys Construction Company. The contract will include site work, parking, road paving, building construction, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, cabling for voice, video, data and all other systems related to the construction of a new 39-classroom elementary school. The school is scheduled for occupancy in August 2014.
Funding for the school was included in the 2007 school bond package. At that time, the school was expected to be open in 2010, but the county has delayed selling bonds due to the economy.
The contract also includes the construction of a 20-acre neighborhood park behind the school. The master plan for the site was released by the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department in 2008.
The elementary school will be in the northwest corner of the site along York Road. The park will be on 20 acres behind the school, along the west side of the site. The original site plan features two age-specific playgrounds, a park pavilion, and a play field. All of these will be adjacent to the school and can be used by the school during school hours. The park will be open to the public but a separate play area will be restricted to school use during school hours.
The plan also included a short, .75 mile asphalt loop trail to the south of the elementary school and a longer 1-mile asphalt loop trail around the high school that is planned for the remaining portion of the site. However, the asphalt trails will not be built under this contract.
The high school will take up the bulk of the property on the east side. No funding has been authorized and there is no schedule for its construction. When the high school is built, a road will be built through the property connecting to a new subdivision planned to the south. The asphalt trail in the neighborhood park and the larger loop trail around the high school should be built when the high school is built. The larger loop trail will have two pedestrian connections to the future neighborhood.
The cost of the neighborhood park is $311,518, which will be funded through 2008 park bonds. The Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department will reimburse Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for the cost of the park.
The new school is described as relief for Winget Park and Lake Wylie Elementary Schools, but according to maps adopted by the School Board in 2008 and available HERE, the attendance area for the new school (temporarily named “new York Rd/red Fez Club Rd” school in 2007) will come out of the Winget Park boundary. This year, student enrollment is about 950 at Winget Park and about 630 at Lake Wylie. The building classroom capacity for Winget Park and the new school is 767 each. The building classroom capacity for Lake Wylie is 693.
Once a principal is named in the spring of 2014, the public will be invited to participate in the process to name the new elementary school.
The neighborhood park is named Palisades Neighborhood Park. However, interested persons can submit an application for a different name. If they build a good case, the Park and Recreation Department will consider renaming the park.
Source: http://www.steelecreekresidents.org
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