Midlands district approves site of new elementary school. Here’s where
The youngest students in the northeastern corner of Lexington County could soon be headed to a new elementary school.
The Lexington 1 school board approved an option to place a new elementary school for the River Bluff High School area on approximately 42 acres off of Corley Mill Road.
The school would be located on land near the Saluda River Club and Woodmill neighborhoods, almost two miles west of River Bluff High, which itself opened less than a decade ago.
School personnel cited the growth in the area as necessitating a new school. When voters in Lexington 1 approved a new elementary school in a 2018 referendum, 9,000 new housing units were projected to be built in the area along the Saluda River in the coming years, said Jeff Salters, the district’s chief operations officer.
In the area roughly bordered by Corley Mill Road, North Lake Drive and U.S. 378, students are currently bused to either Midway Elementary at the western end or Meadow Glen Elementary in the southeast, leaving space for a northern elementary school close to the river.
“When we look at where to put a school, we look at where our students are located, and get as close to the students as possible,” Salters said.
Some have expressed concerns that the new school will add to traffic congestion on Corley Mill, but Salters pointed to studies by the S.C. Department of Transportation that other roads in the area already register between 3,000 to more than 10,000 cars per day.
“These students are already on our roadways, traveling all the way over to Midway, some to Meadow Glen,” Salters said. “If we locate here, we can localize some of that traffic and keep them off the main roadways, and create smaller attendance zones.”
Board member Brent Powers noted of all the 2018 referendum projects, “This caused the most heartburn, because it’s the most densely populated.”
The school board voted to approve the plan 6-1. Jada Garris cast the lone dissenting vote, expressing concerns about the location.
“I said, if we try to put a school on Corley Mill Road, we’ll need to increase law enforcement at the board meeting, because the community is not going to be happy,” Garris told The State.
She also worries that adding infrastructure for traffic and other site improvements will also add to the eventual cost of the site, similar to the new Lakeside Middle School on Old Cherokee Road that ended up costing millions more than the initial estimate.
Independent appraisers will work with the district to negotiate a purchasing price from four different owners in the area, then bring the price back to the school board for approval.
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