Wednesday, January 31, 2001
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Wednesday, January 31, 2001 |
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Land purchased for new school complex By CAROLYN
CARY Groundbreaking on the first of four new schools planned as part of a $65 million bond program is expected by summer, now that a 94.2-acre site has been purchased for three schools and the bonds have been sold. Funds from the bond sale last Wednesday are expected to be wired into the Fayette County Board of Education account Feb. 7. The board last week bought 94.2 acres on Lester Road, off Ga. Highway 54 between Fayetteville and Peachtree City, for three of the four new schools, at $9,500 per acre from the estate of Lorex A. Cleveland. Through an agreement with the estate, the elementary school on the site will be named the Cleveland Elementary School. There is sufficient room for a high school, middle school and elementary school, said Melinda Berry-Dreisbach, public information specialist. Plans are to build the Cleveland Elementary School first. The elementary school is a prototype, to be built according the plans with which the three previous elementary schools have been built. "We have tweaked these plans after each previous elementary school was built," said Mike Satterfield, director of facilities services. "Consequently, the amount of change orders should be at a bare minimum." Construction of the first school is expected to cost $6.9 million and will be paid out of the sale of $65 million in bonds recently approved for school expansion. The bonds were sold Wednesday, Jan. 24 by Todd Barnes, of A. G. Edwards & Son, who spoke to the board members. He pointed out that the school board rating according to Moody was AA3 and Standard & Poor's rating was AA-. In both instances the credit rating was higher than the last time the board of education was rated on the bond market. The overall debt cost is projected to be 4.14 percent over a 10-year period. In other business, Dr. John D. DeCotis, superintendant of schools, proposed that a change in local and long distance telephone services be made. Obtaining bids from the three suppliers on local services and four suppliers for the long distance services, it was decided that the lowest provider for local service was BellSouth, and a savings over a 60-month period would amount to $28,746 a year. Quest was the lowest bidder for the long distance services and a 36-month contract would save about $2,000 per year, he said.
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