Board OKs funding to develop school site

The price tag to develop a site for a new middle school on Blackstone Camp Road grew by more than $840,000 at a Columbia County school board meeting Tuesday.

The board unanimously approved the additional funding, which will be used primarily for rock excavation at the land.

"That's the site we had, and we knew we had some rock to deal with," school Superintendent Tommy Price told the board.

George McDavid, a co-owner of OneSource Development, which is the school system's site developer, said the board should incur no more extra costs to remove rocks.

With the extra funding, the cost for the site development is about $3.3 million.

The completion date of the school is set for July 2008.

In other school board business:

- The wood floor for the gymnasium of the new Evans Middle School on Hereford Farm Road was recently installed. The floor still needs to be varnished and painted, and bleachers need to be installed before the gym is complete. Price told the board that it should be done by the middle of October.

- The board agreed to entertain offers from Blanchard and Calhoun to buy about an acre of property from North Harlem Elementary School. School officials said the company plans to build a subdivision near the school and needs the land to add more homes.

Still, the land sale will have to be advertised, and the board could sell the property to a higher bidder.