Columbia Public Schools pursues east Columbia elementary site

After a long search process, Columbia Public Schools has settled on a site for a new elementary school in east Columbia.

The Columbia Board of Education authorized the school district to pursue the purchase of 26 acres off Columbia Gorge Parkway, next to the Vineyards subdivision, near Rolling Hills Road. The district has expanded its elementary school network in recent years: Battle Elementary School opens this fall, and Beulah Ralph Elementary will open in 2016. CPS has been searching for a site in east Columbia for 9 months.

The district’s Long-range Facilities Planning Committee and the school board explored 24 site options before arriving at 3 finalists. The other two finalists, another 26-acre site and one 40-acre site, were both located off Broadway. The district targeted the Columbia Gorge site after considering an exhaustive set of criteria, which ranged from utilities and zoning to location and accessibility for children in east Columbia.

Also among the criteria are price and likelihood to sell. CPS projects the site, if successfully acquired, to have the lowest total cost of purchase and development: $2.62 million versus $2.68 million for the 40-acre site and $4.21 million for the other 26-acre site. The current landowner of the proposed location is Boone Landholdings, LLC.

If the land acquisition goes smoothly, CPS expects the school to be open for the 2018 school year. The campus will include a gymnasium, baseball diamond and track; in design, the facilities will mirror the two other CPS elementary schools, Battle and Beulah Ralph, set to open in the next two years.

CPS will fund the school using bonds approved in the April 2014 bond issue election. Development will also include road projects around the school.