Lexington 2 may opt for smaller new school

A new elementary school in West Columbia may be smaller than first proposed.

Lexington 2 officials are considering limiting enrollment at the school to be built on a site on Henbet Drive to 850 students, half the initial size suggested.

“We’re looking at different ideas that might be possible on that site, ” Lexington 2 school board chairwoman Linda Alford-Wooten said.

Exploration of the smaller school comes after suggestions that widening the road to handle larger enrollment would be costly and complaints about the site’s distance from neighborhoods where many students live.

Approval of the change by board members would keep Pineview Elementary and Saluda River Academy for the Arts open for 400 students each in kindergarten through second grades instead of those two schools closing.

The new school, unnamed so far, would be for third through fifth grades.

Board members are awaiting estimates on the extent and cost of improvements at Pineview and Saluda River.

Plans call for the new school to open in fall 2017 on a 38.6-acre site off U.S. 378 midway between I-26 and I-20.

It is one of two new elementary schools included in a $225 million package of improvements approved at a November 2014 referendum.

The other will rise on a tract near 12th Street and Taylor Road in Cayce.

Renovations are ahead for all of Lexington 2’s other 13 schools, many built more than 50 years ago and among the oldest in the Midlands.

School officials expect it will take five years to finish all projects.

This story was originally published January 3, 2016 at 12:17 PM.