FORT SMITH — The School Board for the Fort Smith School District passed a resolution Monday requesting 80 acres of former Fort Chaffee land as a future site for one or more schools.
The board voted 7-0 to ask that land near Wells Lake Road and Arkansas 255 on the northern edge of the property be given to the district for a junior or senior high school.
Ivy Owen, executive director of the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority, said last week that he would present a resolution to the authority board on Dec. 16 to give the land to the school district if the School Board passed its resolution.
No timetable is set for building the new school, spokesman Zena Featherston said. Southside High School, which is closest to the Fort Chaffee property, is near capacity, she said.
Southside’s enrollment is 1,547 this year. The school no longer is taking transfer students, Featherston said, although it still must accept students who move into the district.
The district’s other high school, Northside, has an enrollment of 1,356. The district has a total enrollment, pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, of 14,107.
Owen suggested that the district establish its school at what is now called Chaffee Crossing.
A developer who Owen declined to name last week wants to buy and develop 300 acres of the surplus federal land in phases for residential and commercial use and would like to have it near a school, Owen said.
He said he envisioned the residential development being anchored by the school at one end and a new library branch at the other.
The redevelopment authority is responsible for converting about 7,000 acres of surplus Fort Chaffee land to civilian use.
Several businesses have moved into some of the former military buildings, and residential neighborhoods have sprung up on the property in the past three years. Industrial use also is growing on the land with the construction of three factories.
Arkansas, Pages 16 on 11/24/2010