City To Buy Former Canton High School Building

CANTON, GA — The city of Canton has taken a big step in overhauling its municipal operations in its central business district. The City Council has given the go-ahead to sign an agreement to buy the historic Canton High School owned by the Cherokee County School District. The city will buy the building from the school district for $2.5 million.

The Cherokee County School Board approved the sale of the CCSD Downtown Center at the corner of Archer and Academy streets, the last building it owned in downtown, at its March 15 meeting. Canton's purchase will include the building, the parking surrounding the site and another corner lot at Archer Street and West Marietta/Church Street. The purchase allows the city to add 62 public parking spaces to Canton's lineup.

School system spokesperson Barbara Jacoby said CCSD has used the building for the past 15 years to house offices related to educational programs, financial management, human resources and police operations. Its special education staff is housed at the site, and will be allowed to remain in those offices through the summer when they will be moved to other offices.

Since 2003, CCSD has spent $5 million to renovate and maintain the building, Jacoby added. Canton will repurpose the old high school into the new City Hall. The former School Board Auditorium, located on the ground floor of the Downtown Center, is "one of the best public meeting rooms in the county," the city added.

Canton's purchase is part of several downtown projects it would like to undertake as part of the SPLOST VII funding cycle. One of the major priorities would be to create a new Police Department that allows the agency to expand to keep up with demands and to also provide additional security features for city personnel. Other initiatives Canton wants to explore includes scouting for property to expand parking options for downtown patrons and to preserve the historic resources that compliment the city's heritage (For more news like this, find your local Patch here. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here).

The current City Hall at 151 Elizabeth Street was purchased more than 10 years ago from First Baptist Church of Canton. It will be remodeled to serve as a new Canton Public Safety and Municipal Court building. Police operations will move from 10,000 square feet of space on East Marietta Street to a 30,000-square-foot building. These projects, which are estimated to cost $7 million, will be paid for using SPLOST revenue.

The old Police Department building will be renovated in the next few months, but no specifics have been released by the city. Parking around this facility, which is about 40 spaces, will be opened to the public for additional parking that is more accessible to downtown restaurants and shops.

Along with the development agreement for the project at the former Grammar School and Mill Office on Academy Street, these moves will grow and preserve an additional 250 publicly available parking spaces on the southern side of downtown, the city added.

“Once again the city of Canton has preserved and will repurpose a historic building in our downtown," Mayor Gene Hobgood said. "This purchase not only helps preserve the historic character of our city but also provides essential space for our city government as the demands of our growing population continue to increase."

As readers recall, the Cherokee County School Board and the city of Canton in 2015 agreed to a land swap where the city obtained the former Textile Mill Offices and Canton Grammar School. The school board, in turn, obtained 19.78 acres of land located along Bluffs Parkway for its new administrative office complex.

District staff and former Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Petruzielo at the time recommended demolishing Buildings A and B to accommodate its new central office headquarters, as the system argued the renovations of both facilities would be costly. Residents and members of the Cherokee County Historical Society banded together to convince CCSD to save the two buildings, which have now been incorporated into plans to redevelop the site into a mixed-use project that would feature a Panera Bread.

Image via city of Canton