The Lexington School District 2 Board heard a plan, last Thursday, that outlined a major renovation for Saluda River Academy for the Arts (SRAA.)

The school was at one time slated to be absorbed into a mega-elementary school, but that plan has faded because the new elementary school would be too big, and there has been community sentiment to keep the smaller SRAA, an arts-centric school. It offers dance, music, theater and art classes for K-through-5 students.

The new plan calls for an $8.5 million renovation and expansion of SRAA. It would include a new cafeteria and a large physical education building. The portables on-site would be eliminated by the addition of more classroom space and there would be more parking area and room for stacking pick-up and drop-off traffic, according to Todd Sease of Jumper Carter Sease Architects. Thompson Turner Construction would be the contractor working on the school. The upgraded school would have more windows, to add natural light, too.

According to the plan outlined Thursday, the renovation would be completed by August of 2019. SRAA students would be moved- for safety reasons- to the Brookland-Cayce Grammar School No.1 building on Hook Avenue, for a year, while the work is being done at the Duke Street school. BC Grammar students would be attending class at the new elementary school on Cougar Drive beginning in August 2018, under the district’s construction plan.
The construction is being funded by the $225 million bond referendum that Lexington 2 voters passed in 2014.