Cornerstone Church leaders are offering their Webb Road property as an option for a Rowan-Salisbury School System central office.
The church’s board of directors sent Rowan County Commissioners a letter of intent Wednesday, listing three possible purchase options ranging from $3 to $4 million.
That’s just two days after school board members agreed to consider other options if the quest for a downtown central office gets nixed.
And it’s one day after the Salisbury City Council agreed to donate a $200,000 parcel in the 300 block of South Main Street for a 62,000 square-foot building. A private developer would construct the facility, with the school system entering a lease-purchase agreement.
The donation of the land and $1.5 million in New Market Tax Credits would knock the estimated price tag of the project to $7.15 million.
This isn’t the first time, Cornerstone has put the property on the table.
The church offered to sell its business center, education center, child development center, a combined total of between 42,000 and 44,000 square-feet, as well as nearly nine acres of land, to the school system in November 2010.
At the time, the purchase price was estimated to be between $4.5 and $5.5 million, and the district could not afford it.
Bill Godair, the church’s lead pastor, said the offer reappeared after a meeting with commissioners Jim Sides and Carl Ford.
“They informed me that they were there as citizens not as county commissioners and they wanted to find out if there were any possibilities,” Godair said.
Gene Miller, assistant superintendent of operations for the school system, told school board members earlier this week that Sides and Ford agree about the need for a central office but will not support building one downtown.
Read the complete story in Saturday’s Post.