© 2024 WFAE
90.7 Charlotte 93.7 Southern Pines 90.3 Hickory 106.1 Laurinburg
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
An in-depth look at our region's emerging economic, social, political and cultural identity.

CMS Approves $2.5 Million Sale of Former School To Davidson

David Boraks
Former Davidson International Baccalaureate Middle School

Davidson officials plan to meet the town’s growing public facility space needs through the purchase of a vacant school that’s owned by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

This week the CMS board approved the sale of the former Davidson International Baccalaureate Middle School and its 5.1 acres to the town for nearly $2.5 million. The sale now needs to be approved by the Mecklenburg County Commission.

As the town’s population has grown, so has the need for more space for city offices, says Assistant Town Manager Dawn Blobaum.

“The Fire Department and Police Department are in the same building but public works and parks and recreation are in a different building,” says Blobaum. “Having everybody in the same building would work best.”

Credit David Boraks
Davidson officials gave residents a tour of the CMS school when they were considering leasing the property and sharing space with the district. Now they want to buy it for $2.5 million and develop a master plan for the site.

Blobaum is not sure that can be totally accomplished with the purchase because the school and its gymnasium, built in 1948, are listed as historic landmarks by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission. She says there are limitations on what can be done to the building. Any changes would need to be approved by the commission.

“We can’t clear the site and build what we want, but because that building has been in the town so long and is part of the history here, we don’t want to tear it down."

She says Davidson will hold public hearings before drawing up master plans. Blobaum says it will take about a year-and-a half to approve all of the plans needed for the project, with renovations starting around mid-year 2020.

CMS closed Davidson IB in 2011 and moved the magnet program to JM Alexander Middle School. Lake Norman Christian School leased the building until June of this year.  

Davidson officials initially planned to lease the property from CMS and share space with the school district. That project came with a $15 million price tag, contingent on passage of a bond referendum.

“With us purchasing the site, we’ll own the entire site and this won’t be a lease purchase anymore, so those plans were put aside,” Blobaum says. “We don’t have a master plan in place yet, so we have no idea what this will cost. The (Davidson) board (of Commissioners) will decide if we will do a bond referendum next year or finance it with loans or in other ways.”

The county commission is expected to vote on the sale next month.

Gwendolyn is an award-winning journalist who has covered a broad range of stories on the local and national levels. Her experience includes producing on-air reports for National Public Radio and she worked full-time as a producer for NPR’s All Things Considered news program for five years. She worked for several years as an on-air contract reporter for CNN in Atlanta and worked in print as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun Media Group, The Washington Post and covered Congress and various federal agencies for the Daily Environment Report and Real Estate Finance Today. Glenn has won awards for her reports from the Maryland-DC-Delaware Press Association, SNA and the first-place radio award from the National Association of Black Journalists.