By the start of next school year, Queen’s Grant Preparatory High School in Charlotte could have a permanent Mint Hill address... and it may cost millions of dollars less than school officials planned.
Presently in negotiations with Impact Church, 10323 Idlewild Road, school officials want to buy 33-acres of land for about $2.4 million. The Mint Hill church property, near the intersection of Idlewild and Margaret Wallace roads, is the former home of the Idlewild Country Club. The church has outgrown its location and wants to buy a larger facility nearby where it can have a nursery and children’s classrooms.
A rezoning application has been filed with the town to change the property use from residential to institutional, so the school can operate there. A public hearing is scheduled for Thursday, April 9; commissioners could vote on the application as early as May 14.
Queens Grant planned to buy land off Lawyers Road and build an approximately 42,000-square-foot building, but couldn’t get financing for the approximately $10 million project. The high school, an expansion of Mint Hill’s Queens Grant Community School, opened in 2007 with about 105 students. With about 220 students this year, the high school meets in rented space at 7700 Wallace Road. Though open to the public, charter schools don’t receive state funding for facilities.