Four days after local educators and business leaders urged officials from Lanier Technical College to build a new campus in Barrow County, a local banking family announced it is offering a potential site for such a campus off Hwy. 316.
The Barrow County Board of Education has scheduled a meeting April 29 with the Barrow County Board of Commissioners to discuss the project and its potential sites.
For months, officials from the college, the local school system, and the county government have been privately discussing a plan for a joint campus that would include a “career academy” for high school students enrolled in technical programs; classroom, lab and workshop space for college-level courses; and a new cultural arts center.
Monday, Wayne Parker of The Norton Agency of Winder issued a press release stating the family of the late Peoples Bank founder, Charles O. Maddox Sr., had made a formal offer of a “donation/sale” of 30 acres for a new campus adjacent to the Barrow Crossing retail center off Hwy. 316.
Land offered for new Lanier Tech facility
Friday, April 23. 2010
County officials also have discussed the possibility of offering another 40 acres off Hwy. 316 at the intersection with Hwy. 53.
Superintendent Wanda Creel said both potential sites would be discussed at the meeting at the school system’s headquarters next week.
“Our plan is to meet with the board of commissioners as well as with representatives from Norton on April 29,” Creel said.
However, she said the 6 p.m. meeting would be a fact-finding session where no decision about the future location would be made.
On April 15, Lanier Tech officials met at the Winder Community Center with about 30 representatives of the public schools, the county and city governments, and the business community. The purpose of the meeting was to receive input on a five-year plan for Lanier Tech, which has campuses in multiple counties.
The meeting primarily was about the direction of the college’s technical programs. However, a recurring theme of the audience’s input was that Barrow County needs a larger campus.
Some said that without additional space, the college’s programs could not be expanded. The size of the current facility in downtown Winder also limits access to the popular dual enrollment program provided by the college and Barrow County Schools, others said.
LANIER TECH MEETING
At last Thursday’s college planning meeting, Sheila Still, a planning and development consultant for Lanier Tech, said when people plan something and start working toward it, then it does happen.
“You may not know the exact direction, but things will fall in place if you plan it, identify the need and move forward…,” she said. “It will come, if you do the work and plan and are committed.”
Boyd McLocklin urged the local leaders to make an investment like the community did in Dawson County, where a new Lanier Tech facility there is now under construction.
“I think that is a charge to us in Barrow,” he said. “To get where we want to be in five years and get a facility, we have to do some of it ourselves.”
School board member Lynn Stevens told the group that she sees a “disconnect” as the schools, the local governments and the chamber work on their own priorities instead of coming together to meet a common goal that would benefit the entire community.
She said she thinks the parties need to work together, to communicate better, and to remain flexible.
“Flexibility is a key,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t feel we have a lot of that.”
TWO POTENTIAL SITES
Monday’s press release from the Norton Agency doesn’t provide any details of the Maddox family’s offer. Some of the acreage would be sold and the rest would be donated.
Parker said Monday that site would be carved out of a larger tract the Maddox family owns.
“The Charles O. Maddox Sr. family has made this gesture with the sincere hope of building quality education and spurring economic growth for the citizens of Barrow County,” the press release states. “The land is contiguous to Barrow Crossing Shopping Center with the hope of continuing to build this premier commercial corridor.”
BOC Chairman Danny Yearwood did not respond to a request for information about the county’s proposal. Sources have told the Barrow Journal that it would be 40 acres on the north side of Hwy. 316. It would be cut out of acreage owned by the Winder-Barrow County Industrial Building Authority.
JOINT FUNDING ALSO A KEY
What is a certainty is that without cooperation and funding from all of the parties, the campus will not happen.
The state budget, as well as the school and county budgets, are in financial straits.
The Georgia House has approved about $700,000 for planning the Lanier Tech facility in Barrow County. However, the Georgia Senate and Gov. Sonny Perdue also must sign off on it.
The school system and the county government together have collected more than $4 million in SPLOST funding, but it is for a cultural arts center. That project was put on hold when Yearwood took office. To access it now, the cultural arts center must be a part of the package.
Before his retirement, superintendent Ron Saunders said in an e-mail that the concept under discussion earlier this year was for a single building to accommodate the school system’s new technical career academy, the college’s credit classes, and the county’s cultural arts center and auditorium.
“We would use the facility in the day as a Career Academy and Lanier Tech could use it in the afternoon and night for their college offerings,” Saunders wrote. “We have had discussions with the board of commissioners to also use their designated Arts/Auditorium SPLOST funds to combine with the money that hopefully will be allotted Lanier Technical College by the State of Georgia to build a facility that would include classrooms, conference center and auditorium.”
Creel underscored this week that all of the plans for the new campus are preliminary.
Superintendent Wanda Creel said both potential sites would be discussed at the meeting at the school system’s headquarters next week.
“Our plan is to meet with the board of commissioners as well as with representatives from Norton on April 29,” Creel said.
However, she said the 6 p.m. meeting would be a fact-finding session where no decision about the future location would be made.
On April 15, Lanier Tech officials met at the Winder Community Center with about 30 representatives of the public schools, the county and city governments, and the business community. The purpose of the meeting was to receive input on a five-year plan for Lanier Tech, which has campuses in multiple counties.
The meeting primarily was about the direction of the college’s technical programs. However, a recurring theme of the audience’s input was that Barrow County needs a larger campus.
Some said that without additional space, the college’s programs could not be expanded. The size of the current facility in downtown Winder also limits access to the popular dual enrollment program provided by the college and Barrow County Schools, others said.
LANIER TECH MEETING
At last Thursday’s college planning meeting, Sheila Still, a planning and development consultant for Lanier Tech, said when people plan something and start working toward it, then it does happen.
“You may not know the exact direction, but things will fall in place if you plan it, identify the need and move forward…,” she said. “It will come, if you do the work and plan and are committed.”
Boyd McLocklin urged the local leaders to make an investment like the community did in Dawson County, where a new Lanier Tech facility there is now under construction.
“I think that is a charge to us in Barrow,” he said. “To get where we want to be in five years and get a facility, we have to do some of it ourselves.”
School board member Lynn Stevens told the group that she sees a “disconnect” as the schools, the local governments and the chamber work on their own priorities instead of coming together to meet a common goal that would benefit the entire community.
She said she thinks the parties need to work together, to communicate better, and to remain flexible.
“Flexibility is a key,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t feel we have a lot of that.”
TWO POTENTIAL SITES
Monday’s press release from the Norton Agency doesn’t provide any details of the Maddox family’s offer. Some of the acreage would be sold and the rest would be donated.
Parker said Monday that site would be carved out of a larger tract the Maddox family owns.
“The Charles O. Maddox Sr. family has made this gesture with the sincere hope of building quality education and spurring economic growth for the citizens of Barrow County,” the press release states. “The land is contiguous to Barrow Crossing Shopping Center with the hope of continuing to build this premier commercial corridor.”
BOC Chairman Danny Yearwood did not respond to a request for information about the county’s proposal. Sources have told the Barrow Journal that it would be 40 acres on the north side of Hwy. 316. It would be cut out of acreage owned by the Winder-Barrow County Industrial Building Authority.
JOINT FUNDING ALSO A KEY
What is a certainty is that without cooperation and funding from all of the parties, the campus will not happen.
The state budget, as well as the school and county budgets, are in financial straits.
The Georgia House has approved about $700,000 for planning the Lanier Tech facility in Barrow County. However, the Georgia Senate and Gov. Sonny Perdue also must sign off on it.
The school system and the county government together have collected more than $4 million in SPLOST funding, but it is for a cultural arts center. That project was put on hold when Yearwood took office. To access it now, the cultural arts center must be a part of the package.
Before his retirement, superintendent Ron Saunders said in an e-mail that the concept under discussion earlier this year was for a single building to accommodate the school system’s new technical career academy, the college’s credit classes, and the county’s cultural arts center and auditorium.
“We would use the facility in the day as a Career Academy and Lanier Tech could use it in the afternoon and night for their college offerings,” Saunders wrote. “We have had discussions with the board of commissioners to also use their designated Arts/Auditorium SPLOST funds to combine with the money that hopefully will be allotted Lanier Technical College by the State of Georgia to build a facility that would include classrooms, conference center and auditorium.”
Creel underscored this week that all of the plans for the new campus are preliminary.
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Our community is much better off because of their interest in and love for this county.
I expect that bank owned property would need to be maximized as a sale. This doesn't sound like that. Furthermore, there is no bank in town that has done as much through the years as Peoples Bank.