Coral Springs commission: move the school out of downtown
The city’s busiest intersection — once a shopping district, then a school — will now likely become a shopping hub yet again.
The city commission has agreed that the city-run charter school needs to be moved out of the area destined to become a downtown to make way for new development.
“If you pick the one building in the wrong place, it would be the charter school,” said Vice Mayor Tom Powers. “There could be a better place for it.”
For years, the city has talked about creating a downtown in the quadrant of Sample Road and University Drive. It recently hired a planning institute that suggested the city create multi-story housing and businesses, such as cafes, that will be open late to create a night life.
But, the Coral Springs Charter School, a 6th- to 12th-grade school, sits at the southeast corner of the intersection.
“It’s right in the middle of downtown,” complained Mayor Vince Boccard. “It’s grossly impacting future development of the area [with] school zones, traffic issues. Who is going to want to develop a shopping center surrounded by a school?”
Chief among the city’s plans for a downtown district are to build a new City Hall in the area.