The Cobb County School District has announced it intends to acquire property near Walton High School, next to land designated for a new sports complex for the school’s varsity softball and tennis teams.
During a Cobb Board of Education meeting Thursday afternoon, Marc Smith, the district’s Chief Technology and Operations Officer, stated the board’s intent to purchase two land parcels.
They’re 3.5 acres at 1483 Pine Road for $2 million, and 1.2 acres at 3753 Providence Road for $650,000 (indicated by the blue stars on the map above).
The announcement was made after the board emerged from an executive session, where land matters are discussed.
Those parcels are located next to 15.2 acres on Pine Road that the district purchased in November for $3 million (red star), after threatening the property owner, Thelma McClure, with eminent domain.
Smith said the purchase of the additional property is scheduled to be finalized at the board’s August meeting, but he didn’t elaborate. There was no discussion by the board during the brief voting meeting, which followed a nearly-five-hour work session that included the announcement that the new school year would start online-only.
According to Cobb Tax Assessors records, the Pine Road property is owned by Harold and Joan Estes, and has a single-family ranch home built in the early 1960s.
The Providence Road land is owned by Maudelle Gilbert Gibson, and a single-family home there was built in the mid-1970s.
Since 2014, the Walton softball and tennis teams have competed at Terrell Mill Park, giving way to a new classroom building.
Walton softball parents had been lobbying for the new complex, and were considering legal action under Title IX, a federal education sex discrimination law, since the Walton boys’ baseball team has remained on campus.
Funding for the property acquisition comes from Cobb Education SPLOST V revenues. So will construction costs, but those have not been determined.
When it’s finished sports complex will be the final component of a comprehensive rebuild of the Walton campus.
The new classroom building opened in August 2017 at a cost of $48 million, and last fall a new gymnasium and performing arts theatre opened where the original classroom building once stood, with a price tag of $31 million.
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