From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3/20/1912, p. 7, c. 1

NO AUDITORIUM FOR CHURCH HILL
Finance Committee Orders Plans for Bellevue School Reduced in Cost.
NEW BUILDING FOR SIDNEY
Church Hill School Cut to $100,000, and New One Ordered at $80,000.

Plans for the new Bellevue public school, estimates on which were $123,000, were returned to the City School Board by the Council Committee on Finance last night, with a resolution asking for new plans, the cost not to exceed $100,000. At the same time a resolution was forwarded to the Council for adoption authorizing the City School Board to secure plans for the new Sidney School, the cost not to exceed $80,000 complete.

J. G. Corley, of the School Board, appeared before the Finance Committee, explaining that of the general scheme projected last year to provide adequate elementary schools within a period of five years at a cost not to exceed $600,000, the Council had set apart from a bond issue during the past year $200,000 to provide two white and one colored school. After looking over the field, the Council had approved the action of the School Board in acquiring sites costing $40,000, the most expensive being the Van Lew property, comprising an entire block, for $25,000.

Auditorium Proposed.

Plans had been approved and contracts awarded for new Madison School, to cost about $95,000, and the new Buchanan colored school, to cost approximately $40,000. In preparing plans for the new Bellevue School to stand on the Van Lew property, at Twenty-third and Grace Streets, the board had selected the sketched of Carneal & Johnston for a twenty-four-room building, with a central auditorium, seating 1,000 people. Mr. Corley explained that when completed it would be possible to abandon and sell the old Bellevue School on Broad Street, and when now Springfield School is ready, the old building at Nineteenth and Marshall can be abandoned altogether. Mr. Corley admitted that the plans could be cut, but held that it was not desirable, outlining the scheme of the School Board to have a central auditorium in this school, which would not only serve as an assembly hall for the school, but also as a meeting place for the people of Church Hill in all manner of school extension work, pointing out that Church Hill has now no suitable auditorium, while other sections of the city are amply supplied.

Superintendent J. A. C. Chandler said the enrolment of the schools at present was 1,104 more than the total enrolment last session; that they were growing rapidly, and that new building were necessary. He approved of the plans for an auditorium on Church Hill, saying that while it did not materially add to the cost of the building, it would make it available for gatherings of many kinds, the central section of the city having available the John Marshall School auditorium, and the western section the City Auditorium. Every seat was taken at the Fox School on Hanover Street, and pupils were being transferred across the city at some expense to meet over-crowded conditions, and he urged immediate action on plans for a building for new Sidney School to stand on a lot recently acquired by the city in the far southwestern section of the city.
….

How the Vote Stood.

After the meeting it was stated that the vote on the Bellevue School proposal was 8 to 3, Messrs. Butler, Richards and Fuller contending for the plans as presented by the School Board, including the auditorium as a much needed centre of social life on Church Hill, while the majority of the committee stood out for the erection of a building for school purposes only, with merely an assembly hall for the pupils, instead of an auditorium for public uses.

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