The Pineville Board of Education discussed their plans for a new preschool center with architects Brad Beatty and Ben Boggs from Clotfelter-Samokar and members of the Pineville City Council during a special called meeting.

“As you all know we acquired the Presbyterian field and church building this past year,” School Board Chairman James Golden said. “Our vision can be summed up with ‘If you build it they will come.’ We’ve been in the process of trying to make Pineville the best school we can possibly make it and we’d like for it to be the go-to school in our county.”

He went on to explain that having a good school is important to the city and helps it to draw more families and more residents to live there.

Superintendent Russell Thompson spoke about the ordeal the school went through in raising taxes two years ago. He had Lincoln Theinert from Ross, Sinclair & Associates to explain the 5-cent increase in the tax rate was matched nearly 8 to 1 in state equalization funds for facilities. This has raised the district’s bonding capacity to at least $6 million with a strong possibility of rising to $7.2 million by 2026.

“Our preschool kids have been over in a mobile unit for 20-plus years. Our bathrooms in the elementary building have the same tile that was there when most of you were in school,” Thompson said. “Our plan was never to put all of our money into the athletic fields. We had a crisis over there with the pool and the stadium that we had to take care of. . . I think the football field is fantastic and it’s been received very well. Our next step is to see how we can improve our buildings.”

The preschool center is the first project on that list with remodeling the elementary school up next.

“Hopefully we have enough money, if we can think creatively, that we can do this and do it in a phenomenal way that will give us state of the art facilities for our elementary and preschool kids,” Thompson added.

He said the Kentucky Department of Education has recommended a complete teardown and rebuild of the former Presbyterian Church building to be torn down. However, Thompson said he would like to keep the sanctuary to be used for board meetings as well as to host events such as academic competitions or wrestling matches. Four new classrooms would be built around the sanctuary to house Pineville’s preschool. A new preschool playground would also be constructed in Presbyterian Field.

Before the plans can move forward the school will need the city to close the portion of Catalpa Street that currently runs from Kentucky Avenue between the field and the current church building.

“The biggest issue they had from KDE in supporting this plan is the alley — it’s a street but it looks like an alley now because they extended the building out into the street — they have deemed the alley and drop-off for the kids as unsafe,” Thompson said. “That’s really a big red flag for us putting in a preschool. To keep the cathedral and to get all four classrooms in there with a playground extending into the field, we need the school to become owners of the street so we can build on it. We cannot do this project without that.”

Beatty explained that the best option for keeping the sanctuary as a multi-purpose space was to tear down the existing additions and then build out the four new classrooms.

“You can see the red outline on the map for the approximate set-back locations. We need some exceptions to that, which isn’t uncommon along that street, to allow us to essentially wrap the new facility around the existing sanctuary,” he said. “We’re essentially taking the additions off that won’t meet code, adding new building in and around the facility that does meet code, and extending across Catalpa to add two more classrooms to fit the district’s needs.”

Mayor Shawn Fugate II attended the meeting along with council members Alicia Slusher, Mikey Long and Chad Gambrell.

“We won’t be able to vote on it here. It will have to go to the variance board and I’ll need to sit down with our fire chief to make sure but I don’t foresee any issues with closing it,” Fugate said. “We’ll have them look at possibly closing the alley between field and the playground as well. That way we can have everything done at one time. That would be safer for the kids and if anything the homeowner will appreciate not having the traffic through there.”

A discussion of closing Catalpa Street between Presbyterian field and the church as well as closing Kevir Alley between the field and playground are including on the agenda for Monday’s Pineville City Council meeting.

Thompson said the estimated cost of the project is around $3.7 million. That would leave over $2 million for renovations to the elementary school.

“This is an exciting time for our city and an exciting time for our school. I feel as united and ready to go to work to secure the best future we possibly can for everybody in our town,” Thompson said. “I appreciate the council members being here and our board members and I hope we can continue a great relationship.”