Land purchased for westside elementary school

Conway moved closer to having an elementary school on the west side Thursday.

The Conway School Board authorized the purchase of 16 acres off of Padgett Road in west Conway for the new school.

The district hopes to have the school completed by the fall of 2008. The school is located near Tyler Street on Padgett Road near Spencer Lake.

The 16 acres were sold in two separate tracts that are connected and continuous. The 10-acre tract was sold at $52,000 an acre at a cost of $525,117 and the six-acre tract was sold for $210,180, according to Dr. Terry Fiddler, board president.

"We are required by law to have at least 10 acres now for an elementary school, but we feel like any time we can obtain extra land, we better get it because we can't find land," Fiddler said.

"There is no other property in west Conway."

The land was sold to the district by Hal Crafton. Several board members expressed their appreciation for Crafton working with the district on the purchase of the land.

"He could have sold that piece of land for a lot more," said Floyd Balentine, board member.

Balentine said the school originally planned to purchase the 10 acres and Crafton informed them he had more land adjoining at the back of the property and he would sell as much as the district wanted.

Fiddler said what makes the project so great is that the school plans to put in a road to run along the elementary school that will connect to a road Crafton plans to put in as well so there will be three ways to access the school.

The new roads will also connect with Ruth Doyle Intermediate School and help their traffic problems as well, Fiddler said.

Earlier in the week the board approved the sale of $15,765,000 in bonds to pay for the new elementary school.

Additional funds from the sale of those bonds will go to pay for a new bus garage at the bus depot as well as extra expenditures on the west gymnasium and renovations of Conway High School East. The new high school gymnasium is scheduled to be completed next spring.

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(Staff Writer Jeremy Glover can be reached by e-mail at jeremy .glover@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1253.)