Jefferson School tenants lined up

Several local organizations have staked out spots in the Jefferson School, Charlottesville’s former all-black school that is getting ready to undergo a multimillion-dollar redevelopment and restoration.

According to those involved with the project, which will turn the school into the Jefferson School City Center, the nonprofits or institutions planning to move in are: the Jefferson Area Board for Aging, Piedmont Virginia Community College, the YMCA, Common Ground Healing Arts and the Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville-Albemarle.

Additionally, the school’s previously known anchor establishments are a 9,368-square-foot African-American Heritage Center and a refurbished, 20,979-square-foot Carver Recreation Center, according to the project’s Web site.

“It’s going to be a beautiful facility that’s almost in the heart of downtown,” said Martin Burks, president of the Jefferson School Community Partnership.

The establishment holds a special place in the minds of many Charlottesville residents, who want to preserve the school’s legacy as a community hub and as a key component of the city’s black history.

All of the organizations have signed letters of intent to lease space in the school, said L.J. Lopez, with developer Stonehaus, which is managing the school’s redevelopment. Gordon Walker, the chief executive officer of JABA, said its goal was to have tenants in the school that could partner to provide an array of services.

“JABA’s been working with the partnership to recruit nonprofits that would agree to sign memorandums of agreement to work together,” he said.

Apart from having a community center and nursing clinic, JABA is seeking to build a cafe in the school, which Walker said would feed visitors but also provide a work site for PVCC culinary arts students. Earlier this year, Piedmont’s president, Frank Friedman, mentioned the planned satellite campus project at a meeting of the college’s advisory board.

Other organizations say they plan to exercise similar exchanges. Jackie Bright, the executive director of the Literacy Volunteers, said one of the ways the Jefferson School is beneficial to the organization is because of the YMCA’s planned daycare center. For many of the literacy program’s learners, she said, finding childcare poses a huge obstacle.

“For us, being a part of the Jefferson School is going to provide a whole host of possibilities,” Bright said. She added, “The original mission of that building was to further education.”

The history of the Jefferson School goes back to the late 1800s, when a small school for black elementary students was built in Charlottesville. The old Jefferson Graded School was built in 1894, and the Jefferson School was constructed in 1926 on land adjacent to the old graded school.

Starting as a high school, the newer Jefferson School became an all-black elementary school in 1951. The school was closed 13 years later, and then was primarily used as classroom and office space, as well as for preschool and PVCC programs.

The school closed for good in 2002.

Turning the Jefferson School into the new city center is estimated to cost $17 million, and will be funded with a mix of $5.8 million in city money, tax credits and private funding. Burks said they are seeking an $11 million bank loan.

Burks said construction, expected to go on for a year, should start in September or October, pushed back slightly from the original hope of starting this summer.

“We’ve done quite a bit of work,” he said. “Everything is falling in line.”