Work progresses at new home for Rock Hill’s Legion Collegiate Academy. What’s next?
After a slower-than-expected start, construction for Legion Collegiate Academy’s permanent site in Rock Hill is progressing, school officials said.
Legion, the area’s newest public charter school, released aerial video footage of the construction progress via Twitter on Wednesday. The footage showed land cleared and carved out of a forest, a promising sign for the school that spent its inaugural year at a temporary site off Bird Street in Rock Hill.
Construction on the permanent site began January 1. Legion owns an 83-acre site off Highway 901 and Long Meadow Road in Rock Hill, and the school’s address will be 3090 Long Meadow Road, The Herald previously reported.
Dr. T.K. Kennedy, the school’s principal, told The Herald on Wednesday that the vast amounts of rain in the early part of the year has hindered construction, but that the school will be ready sometime in the fall.
“They don’t build schools like they used to,” Kennedy said. “The buildings they create now, a lot of them are already designed, and they pull concrete walls down, so they can be built much quicker than in the past.”
It’s also not a very large school, Kennedy added. In its plans, Legion’s permanent site will include a building that has 16 classrooms; a building with a gym, a weight room and coaching offices; a building for the school’s student union; and an athletic field.
The group that’s building Legion is the same one that built York Preparatory Academy, Legion athletic director Strait Herron said.
“And of course, because we’re not a huge building,” Kennedy said, “we can save on costs and fund these projects that we feel are very important to our students and parents.”
LCA athletic facilities will be ‘absolutely phenomenal’
Many of the projects that are important to Legion involve athletics. The school, after all, has an expressed focus in athletics and academics. Many of its athletes — enticed by the school’s shorter hours and emphasis on athletics training — transferred from high schools in the Tri-County.
Athletic facilities in the permanent site plan do not include a football stadium, a baseball field or a softball field. These facilities will have to be fund-raised by the school, said Erik Miller, the director of operation at Pinnacle Charter School Management Group, which manages Legion.
“I know we’re working on getting a capital campaign started,” Miller said. “We’re working on creating and finalizing a master plan so we can bring that final vision (to the community).”
Miller said Legion doesn’t get the same kind of funding for facilities that the local public schools do because of its public charter status. Thus, it limits Legion’s ability to finance and build the same kinds of facilities as public schools.
In the long run, Herron said the athletic facilities will be “absolutely phenomenal,” but he also said the fundraising aspect — pitching the school’s vision to corporate sponsors and community businesses — will take time and effort.
It’ll also take a bit of cooperation from the surrounding community. After all, without certain facilities built into the permanent site plan, Legion will need to find a home stadium for its football, baseball and softball teams.
Herron said the school put in requests last year to the four York County school districts — York, Clover, Rock Hill and Fort Mill — to rent their sports facilities, and each request was denied.
“I’m getting ready to send out requests again,” Herron said. “We gotta find a place to play, which is not easy, but it is what it is. We’re going to figure it out.”
Herron also needs to find a place where his fall sports teams can practice and play. He said he’s inquired to the recently-opened Rock Hill Sports and Event Center, a facility with many courts that has already hosted several volleyball and basketball tournaments.
“I’ve reached out to them and talked to them before, but then the (coronavirus) pandemic hit and everything kind of came to a screeching halt,” Herron said. “But we’ve already spoken with them and they were very hospitable.”
Despite the frustrations that have accompanied the site’s construction and the other challenges that lay ahead for Legion, Kennedy said serving during the school’s inaugural year has been rewarding.
“We just want to be a part of the community, and be another resource for the community,” Kennedy said.
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