Editorial
It would be wonderful if Buena Vista could afford a $69 million, 99,000-squarefoot new school serving students in pre-k through seventh grade that would be built up on the hill adjacent to Parry McCluer High School.
The city, undeniably, however, can’t come close to being able to afford such a luxury. Buena Vista’s borrowing capacity is well below the amount of money needed to build such a school. Even if the state didn’t limit the city’s borrowing capacity, the real estate tax rate would have to be raised to such a level that citizens couldn’t afford to pay their taxes.
Unless a golden goose were to materialize with gobs of grant money, the city must find another option for serving the division’s sixthand seventh-graders who are now being taught in a dilapidated structure, much of which is nearly a century old. This is an untenable situation that must be addressed.
The best available option, it seems to us, but which the School Board has not yet seriously considered, would be to convert the recently vacated Mountain Gateway Community College Rockbridge Center on Vista Links Drive into a middle school. The 17-year-old building has been well-maintained and could easily be transformed from a school that served college students to one that could serve middle school students. There’s plenty of space and plenty of parking.
One downside is that Vista Links Drive was built too narrow when it was constructed for the golf course and community college. Even so, school buses from Rockbridge County and Buena Vista regularly traverse this narrow road. The 240-space parking lot at the MGCC building has plenty of room for school buses to maneuver. It would be a much safer place for a bus to load and unload students than at the current Parry McCluer Middle School, which has no off-street parking and where students are loaded and unloaded from the bus on a city street.
Widening Vista Links Drive should be a future capital improvements project for the city regardless of what the future use of the MGCC building might be. A flurry of house building along Vista Links Drive has been occurring in recent years, since a developer with ties to Southern Virginia University purchased the Vista Links golf course. It’s not publicly known what the plans are for the golf course property, but whatever it is, a better road will be needed to access it. Buena Vista still owes approximately $1,753,000 on loans the city took out to construct the MGCC building 17 years ago. Annual payments are currently at about $181,000 and the loans won’t be paid off until 2044. The city must find a use for this building, which appears to be in very good condition. Among the possibilities that have been mentioned are to use the building for the city courts, an economic development project or a middle school.
We believe the last of these possibilities is the best option. There’s a dire need for such a school and this appears to be the most affordable option. A City Council member took a group of teachers and city leaders on an informal tour of the building last week. A comment sentiment heard during this tour is that choosing this option for a middle school is a “nobrainer.”
We hope City Council and the School Board will take a close look at this option.
