Apr. 14—MORGANTOWN — The Morgantown Planning Commission has signed off on a request from the Monongalia County Board of Education regarding the future site of a new Suncrest Middle School.
The commission approved a subdivision request to split a 13-acre parcel off the 192-acre parcel that once included the West Virginia University poultry farm.
The property is located off Research Park Road and sits directly behind Sundale Nursing Home.
The newly formed parcel is part of the approximately 17 acres of “pad ready ” land purchased by the BOE from WVU for $4 million late last year for the purpose of building a new Suncrest Middle School.
The remaining four acres obtained by the BOE is a separate, adjacent parcel that, due to the seemingly random nature of the city’s boundaries, is located outside of Morgantown and included in the county’s West Run Planning District.
According to attorney Robert Shuman, who represented the BOE before the planning commission, the BOE will likely request to have that smaller property annexed into the city at some point and the entire 17 acres consolidated into a single parcel.
The construction of a new Suncrest Middle School has an anticipated project cost of $33, 965, 932 to be split between the district and the School Building Authority of West Virginia.
The SBA announced in December that it was awarding Monongalia County Schools $16, 956, 966 to be provided in two payments — $11, 400, 437 in fiscal year 2025 and $5, 582, 529 in fiscal year 2026.
The BOE hired Williamson Shriver Architects out of Charleston to design the new school and lead the construction project.
The original section of the current Suncrest Middle School building on Baldwin Street was built in 1939. It underwent six major additions between 1953 and 2016, including a renovation in 1994 that doubled the school’s square footage.
According to an SBA report on the old school’s condition, a worrying number of stress cracks have formed throughout the building in recent years resulting in significant movement within the structure.
In March, the BOE approved a $115, 402 contract with Clarksburg-based City Construction to demolish one section — three rooms — of the building.