New Dimensions School set to buy new building

The New Dimensions School will be in a new home this fall.

The charter school has made an offer to buy the Shadowline Inc. manufacturing plant at 550 Lenoir Road.

Assuming that an environmental survey finds no problems, Director Larry Wilkerson expects the school will close the purchase by June 30.

Terms of the offer were not disclosed pending the sale’s completion.

Wilkerson said he notified Burke County Schools Superintendent Art Stellar this week that New Dimensions is no longer interested in acquiring the former Mountain View Elementary School building.

He said Shadowline’s former manufacturing plant has 129,000 square feet — four times as much space as the vacant public school — on a 29-acre lot bordering the Catawba River in north Morganton.

“It’s just a beautiful property,” Wilkerson said.

New Dimensions’ present midtown property at 501 E. Concord has about 6,000 square feet divided between a former brick office building and outlying modular classrooms. A playground and two small parking lots also occupy the 1.4-acre site. It’s the third home the charter school has outgrown in its 10-year history.

The school urgently needs more space, Wilkerson said.

“Enrollment overall has really skyrocketed,” he explained. “We currently have 144 students enrolled for next year. We have 98 currently.”

The school next fall will have two kindergarten classes plus one class in each of the other grades. Wilkerson said enrollment remains open for the sixth grade; for grades 1-4 there is a waiting list. The school tries to limit classroom size to 18 children, though it occasionally will allow 19.

Some of the increased enrollment next year comes from the addition of a sixth-grade class. New Dimensions plans to add a seventh-grade class in 2012-13 and an eighth grade in 2013-14.

“In three years we’ll be a K-8 school,” Wilkerson said.

With a new home in Shadowline’s building, he added, “we’ll have plenty of room for everything.”

Shadowline Inc. produced women’s lingerie at the plant until foreign competition ended the manufacturing operation in 2009. However, the building was never completely vacated. Owner and president Sherrod Salsbury III has maintained an office there.

“We need to do some minor renovation in office area, some wall reconstruction, install a fire alarm, add some handicapped ramps, do some work on restrooms to make them handicapped accessible, change the door knobs to handles for accessibility, too,” Wilkerson said. “That’s pretty much it. Aug. 23 is the first day of fall classes and we certainly hope to be in our new building on that day.”

Back in mid-December, New Dimensions offered to buy the vacant Mountain View Elementary School at 106 Alphabet Lane. Burke County Public Schools administrators rejected the initial offer and asked for more time to respond while the board of education considered options for consolidating schools.

On Monday night the board endorsed a proposal to offer New Dimensions a two-year lease at $140,000 per year. If the school board decided it no longer needed Mountain View at the end of two years, it would offer New Dimensions the option to buy the property and credit one year’s lease payment toward the purchase price.

Wilkerson said New Dimensions couldn’t wait for the board to act, so it already had moved on the Shadowline property. He said that choice also avoided what would have been significant renovation expenses at Mountain View.

“The flooring was taken out and the ceiling stripped out [for asbestos removal]. Cabinets in classrooms are missing. And we understand that hot-water system has been removed,” Wilkerson said. “Fixing it up would have cost tens of thousands of dollars. It would have been quite an undertaking.”

He expects that New Dimensions will add an all-purpose room at Shadowline and create a gymnasium either as an addition or by raising the roof over an existing part of the building.

“That’ll be something we address in a year or two,” Wilkerson said.

Like all charter schools in North Carolina, The New Dimensions School is a public school and receives state support for its operations. However, charter schools do not receive tax money for facilities and capital improvements.

New Dimensions’ Concord Street property is listed for sale or lease after July 1. For information, contact McCombs & Hoke Real Estate, 160 S. Sterling St. Suite 100. The telephone number is 828-437-7766.

People interested in enrolling children at The New Dimensions School can call 828-437-5753. More information on the school and its curriculum is on its website, http://www.newdimensionschool.org .