With land vanishing but more room needed, the School Board finds the Spring Hill college campus intriguing.
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published January 10, 2004
Hernando County school officials have turned their attention to Pasco-Hernando Community College in their continuing quest for new school sites.
During a recent meeting with PHCC president Robert Judson, schools superintendent Wendy Tellone asked whether the college might sell its Spring Hill campus, at Spring Hill and Deborah drives.
Judson said a deal was possible if the district can wait a while.
"We're going to be in it for at least another four or five years," said John Church, chairman of the college board of trustees.
That's how long it will take PHCC to build and move to its planned new Spring Hill campus on U.S. 19.
"At that point, we will consider selling it to the School Board," Church said.
The college houses its cosmetology program at the campus, opened in 1979 and expanded in 1988.
With large parcels scarce and land prices rising in Spring Hill, board members are taking this idea seriously. Their plans call for building at least six new schools in the coming decade, yet the district owns only two pieces of property - one in more sparsely populated Ridge Manor - where it can build immediately. It has other pieces, such as 20 acres next to J.D. Floyd Elementary, but those are not zoned to allow new school construction.
"The acreage is big enough. They have about 12 acres," board member John Druzbick said of the PHCC site. "With 12 acres, we could put an elementary school there. We would have to do a two-story."
Facilities director Graydon Howe has included the site on a draft plan for future school placement, which board members will discuss Tuesday.
The plan would have the district consider buying the college campus during the 2005-06 school year. Already, Howe said, officials are evaluating the potential and best use of the land.
In a memo, he listed four possible uses for the existing PHCC buildings.
The board could place a prekindergarten center on the site, he wrote, housing all prekindergarten classes that otherwise would be on elementary school campuses. Howe said the state has mandated universal voluntary prekindergarten to begin shortly, and a centralized program would free classroom space at the elementary schools.
Another idea was to place several exceptional-student education classes at the campus, again easing crowding at existing schools.
The district also might move the fourth- and fifth-grade classes from J.D. Floyd Elementary School to the campus, and then expand Floyd once a second entrance to the school is completed.
Finally, Howe wrote, the board could create a sixth-grade center for sixth-graders from middle schools around the county.
Other ideas might pop up as well, he said.
Because the board has said it would pay for new school construction only with revenue from a local sales tax, which comes before voters in March, the plan would be to pay for the campus from other accounts. A price has not been discussed.
The college bought the land from Deltona Corp. for $84,900, according to records from the county Property Appraiser's Office. The most recent appraisal of the property valued the land at $121,200 and the buildings at $328,704.
The district recently bought 39 acres on Elgin Boulevard for $1.05-million, and is negotiating for 30 acres just northwest of the Springstead High theater for about the same price.
At least one land deal has fallen apart in the face of community opposition.
"We are looking at all options," Druzbick said. "Because of growth, open space is becoming very difficult to find."
