After years of being dormant, the building that once housed Hughes Alternative School will be back to use again soon.
At Monday”s meeting of the Columbus Municipal School District board of trustees, during the executive session, board members discussed the sale of the building, and opened a single bid for purchase of the building, according to Board Attorney David Dunn.
“The board received a bid of $50,000 from Genesis Church, and Rev. Darren Leach. We have been trying to sell the building for years, and the board unanimously accepted Rev. Leach”s bid,” Dunn said.
The building is located at 1820 23rd St. N. and has been used by the Red Cross as a national evacuation shelter, and the Columbus Police Department has used it for training exercises.
The structure was built in 1957, and Hughes shared the building with Stokes-Beard Elementary School during a 2001 tornado that destroyed Stokes-Beard.
With the construction of a new Stokes-Beard facility — the first new school in the CMSD in 30 years — Hughes, which once served as an elementary school, was closed in 2003.
Hughes students were moved to Union Academy prior to Union”s closing and are now housed in the CMSD administrative building on McArthur Drive. (There are about 58 alternative students.)
Leach said he has many uses for the building and is going to implement them in phases.
“It is going to be a community outreach center. We want to have a transitional living space for men who are going through tough times,” he said.
Leach said other plans include setting up a place for people to prepare for and take the GED test.
“We want to have a place to teach carpentry courses and eventually teach young people about green technology. We want to have something that will make this part of the community step up and take pride,” he said.
The cafeteria will be used to feed the men in transitional living area as well as those who use the day care facilities.
“We are going to have day care and after-school programs here. We are going to have concerts and programs as well,” Leach said.
He is excited to get things going as soon as possible.
Allen Baswell was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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