By SARA WRIGHT
BEAUFORT TODAY

From behind a banner claiming “Ahead of schedule and under budget,” the Beaufort County Board of Education voted Tuesday to buy 280 acres of land in Bluffton for about $15.4 million.

That’s about $26 million less than voters authorized when they gave the school district permission to buy land for a new elementary, middle and high school in Bluffton as part of an April 26 bond referendum.

The $162.7 milliion bond referendum land estimates were based on the median ($275,000) per-acre average obtained from the town.

“We hit the market just right, I would say,” said school board Chairman Fred Washington.

A unanimous 10-0 vote gave the go-ahead for the land purchases. Board member Margie Jenkins remained absent due to poor health.

One 52-acre plot at Okatie Highway and Davis Road will be home to a new 800-student elementary school in Bluffton -- one of three, including Red Cedar, to go up within the next three years.

The Jones Tract school will be built next, and both schools will share a design to save costs.

A second site at New Riverside at S.C. 46 and S.C. 170 includes 224.51 acres for another middle school and a new high school as they are needed down the road.

“What we’ve done as a board is looked ahead … We’re getting significant savings by doing this now,” said Bluffton school board representative Laura Bush.

Al Berry of The Educational Group was hired as a real estate consultant to find the school sites, a project he said was greatly aided by the county’s Geographic Information System.

The Bluffton Parkway and its pathways will connect with the elementary school.

About half of the 52 acres -- including 14 acres of wetlands planned for a school laboratory -- were donated by the seller, Resource Development Group LLC.

The upper schools site was sold by New Riverside LLC, the developer of Palmetto Bluff and New Riverside and a subsidiary of Crescent Properties.

Berry said both school sites already have the necessary permits required for wetlands mitigation, and the middle/high school site already has water and sewer hookups.

Soil borings, hydrology tests and tree investigations all proved the sites “suitable for school construction,” Berry said.

And in deliberating whether to include the land on April 26, the board’s oft-heard refrain was “You can’t get hurt with dirt.”

Rather, the board argued, they could resell the land, likely for a profit.

Board members were so excited at the purchases and their price that they held press conference to spread the news.

“I think we’re setting the tone for the entire bond referendum,” said Bob Arundell of Hilton Head Island. “It is such a big bonus for the Beaufort County taxpayers.”

Contact Sara Wright at 815-0817 or sara.wright@blufftontoday.com