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Franklin City Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Carlton Carter announced Thursday, Nov. 14, a fundraising initiative to transform Charles Street Gym into a state-of-the-art Engineering and Robotics Center.

The announcement came during the school division’s second annual Partnership Luncheon held at Camp Community College’s Regional Workforce Development Center.

Elaborating on the plan to renovate the historic gym, Carter said, “The project not only honors the legacy of the gym but also provides a modern facility for current and future generations of students to engage engineering and technical studies.”

Carter mentioned the gym being built in 1935, and he said the division recently brought a structural engineer out to evaluate the building.

“He stated that the Charles Street Gym is in great shape,” Carter said, noting the exterior of the building was not a concern. “All we have to do is gut the inside.”

Carter explained to the community partners present at the luncheon how they could get involved in the efforts to renovate the structure — the Charles Street Gym Buy-a-Brick Campaign.

He said 4-by-4 bricks can be purchased for $100. They will be inscribed with what the purchaser desires and placed on the sidewalk outside of the gym.

“We want you to be part of the history of transforming Charles Street Gym,” he said.

He said 8-by-8 bricks can be purchased for $300. They will be inscribed with what the purchaser chooses and placed into a dedication wall that will be built outside the gym.

He noted that there will also be three or four benches outside the front of the gym that can be purchased, and he said the price would be discussed with those interested.

“If you have companies and you would like to do a design of the sidewalk, we’ll talk about price there,” he said.

Concluding his comments on the Charles Street Gym Buy-a-Brick Campaign, he said, “We’ll put these on sale for about 90 days, and then after that, the price does go up because the vendor did give us a special price. So if you would like to participate and be part of history, all proceeds go to the construction of the Charles Street Gym.”

For those who wish to participate in the campaign, contact Almeta Davis at adavis@fcpsva.org or Tracy Morrison at tmorrison@fcpsva.org.

FCPS Assistant Superintendent of Operations Dr. Clint Walters also shared details on the gym renovation project during the Franklin City School Board work session on Thursday evening.

“We are excited to evaluate what next steps we would need to do on our end to convert the gym into an Engineering and Robotics Center,” he said. “We have held our initial consultation with a structural engineer.”

He said the engineer used the word “pristine” in describing the condition of the building.

“I think he’s accustomed to seeing old industrial structures, and so I think there was a lot that he saw as potential in the structure,” Walters said.

Walters noted that the school division is going to be working over the coming months to complete a request for proposal to secure architectural services in order to evaluate some of the next steps.

“We do anticipate that this will be a two-year project, but we’re hoping to begin some of those initial steps in May or June of 2025,” he said.

He indicated that funding for the project would be a braided source of General Fund, Capital Improvement funds, donations, fundraising, like the buy-a-brick campaign, and a School Construction Assistance Program (SCAP) grant.

“We do anticipate a SCAP grant being released by (the Virginia Department of Education) either in December or January, and I don’t anticipate any changes in the structure of that, so based on our local composite index, it will cover about 30% of the total cost,” Walters said. “We would just be responsible for 70% of that total project.”

Walters acknowledged that the gym has been declared a historic site.

“That’s one of the things that we’re going to continue to evaluate is how we navigate through making the modifications to the gym and what it would mean with it being a historic site, so we’re still investigating those steps as well,” he said. “That’s going to be part of these next few months.”