The historic Joseph R. Lamar Elementary School building has been sold.
The sale sets in motion plans to relocate residents of Allen Homes, 2.5 miles away in the Laney-Walker community, to a new development at the Lamar site, located across Baker Avenue from the Academy of Richmond County.
Richmond County Board of Education approved the sale for $1.365 million to 970 Baker Ave. LLC on Dec. 12, barely an hour after ARC parent David Dunagan became the lone voice to question the plan.
The sale comes five weeks after the city revealed the plan to residents of Allen Homes, a public housing project.
The vote came after board President Charlie Walker Jr. dismissed the public from the Dec. 12 school board meeting, saying the board was closing the meeting for an executive session. He stated no reason for closing the meeting to the public.
Emerging from a 70-minute executive session, school system trustee Jimmy Atkins made a motion to sell the property at 970 Baker Ave. for a lump sum payment of $1.365 million under a resolution and purchase agreement.
Several trustee voices rang out with seconds, but board Vice President Shawnda Griffin’s second was recorded.
With trustee Charlie Hannah absent, the vote was 8-1. Trustee Venus Cain was opposed, saying she had to vote against the sale.
“I had to think about it, so I made up my mind, no,” Cain said on the meeting video.
The shell company, 970 Baker Ave. LLC was formed Sept. 13, 2023, by attorney Jim Trotter, so the sale has been contemplated for some time. The school board doesn’t advertise a list of properties it has available but has shuttered, closed and sold several schools in recent years.
According to a purchase sale agreement with 970 Baker Ave. obtained by The Augusta Press, the system is selling the 9.43-acre Lamar site with the option to repurchase it if the “buyer fails to commence construction of a mixed-income housing project” within eight years.
Historic Augusta added the Lamar school building to its endangered properties list in 2012.
The school opened in 1934 and was named for Joseph R. Lamar, an Augustan who served as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Lamar’s restored Augusta boyhood home sits on Seventh Street next to the boyhood home of President Woodrow Wilson.
The Lamar school is built in the Art Moderne style and closely resembles the former Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School on Telfair Street. The board allowed the Davidson building to fall into ruin before it was demolished. Lamar, unlike the former Davidson or the beleaguered Weed and Martha Lester schools, isn’t in a state of disrepair.
In 2009, despite its historic legacy and recent $1.7 million renovations, the school board voted to shutter Lamar, based on enrollment declines associated with the closing of Gilbert Manor and Underwood Homes, according to prior reports. Remaining pupils were moved to the new Lamar-Milledge Elementary, where Lamar’s name was moved, on Eve Street.
When city officials revealed the plan to residents last month, they said the 150 units at Allen Homes would be replaced with 281 units of affordable and market-rate housing offered under auspices of Augusta Housing Authority. A second, smaller set of replacement units is eyed for property near Dyess Park.
The city has released no timeline for the development other than saying an application was due last month. The plans are being developed using a Choice Neighborhoods Initiative grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
While residents and stakeholders in Allen Homes and the surrounding Choice Neighborhood district were surveyed at length to develop the new housing plan, the Lamar site sits outside the district intended for improvement.
Dunagan voiced fear at the Dec. 12 meeting of residents bringing their own troubles to the Lamar area, which is surrounded by single-family residences and the high school.
Existing retail surrounding Lamar consists primarily of fast food, a dollar store and meat market, while the nearest grocery is about three miles away.
Susan McCord is a staff writer with The Augusta Press. Reach her at susan@theaugustapress.com
