In about three weeks the Winn-Dixie shopping center will be rubble, leaving in it some 40 years of memories, most recently the April 2011 tornado that all but shut the complex off 10th Street down.
Roanoke Rapids school officials are hopeful the former shopping center will become a new elementary school, replacing the existing Manning school.
“We’ve still got a number of things to do,” said Doug Miller, the school system’s director of facilities and operations.
Monday night’s board of commissioners meeting, in which Superintendent Dennis Sawyer made a formal request for architect fees, Miller said, “Was a good step to the realization of a new Manning Elementary School. We really need funding to hire an architect then we have ideas of where we need to place the school.”
A view of the rubble.
Long-range plans call for a 950 student capacity school, Miller said, noting there are still many studies to go through. “We still have to go through environmental, structural surveys, traffic studies. There’s a ton of stuff we’ve got to work on.”
If the school system can get to the point it is ready to build a new school, then other logistics must be figured out, Miller said. “We’ve got to work on figuring out how to demolish the old building and what we do with the students. We want to work with the city to possibly take over Barrett Street with the purchase of additional property.”
One of the earlier plans, he said, was a phase construction where as the school system built one section of the new school it would tear down a section of the old school. “Right now we’re stuck in planning mode until we get an architect onboard.”
The demolition project, which is being done by A.K. Demolition, is viewed as a positive sign by Manning principal Mike Ferguson.
“As many of you already know the Roanoke Rapids Graded School District recently purchased the property adjacent to Manning Elementary School where the old Winn Dixie was located,” he said in a December letter to parents. “This property will become part of a new Manning Elementary campus in the near future. We are very excited with the prospect of moving along with this project.”
