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Westhampton school to be resuscitated as nursing school

Posted at 6:55 PM, Dec 12, 2013
and last updated 2013-12-12 18:58:17-05

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR)–A historic, but empty, building in Richmond will get a new lease on life.

On Thursday Bon Secours revealed the future of the Westhampton School located at 5808 Patterson; it will house a nursing school and will receive a historic designation.

Previously neighbors near the school on Patterson and Libbie Avenues said they were concerned Bon Secours would demolish the building after they took control of it last year as part of plans for the Redskins training camp facility.

For months the public weighed in on the deal– a $5,000-a-year lease Bon Secours will pay to use the historic (1917) school property for 60 years in exchange for paying $6.3 million towards the Redskins field–and expressed frustration.

The school’s land was assessed at $2.8 million and the building was valued at $4.3 million.

For more than a decade, Bon Secours representatives have been buying up homes in the neighborhood just south of its vast Monument Avenue St. Mary’s Hospital complex, between it and the school.

The hospital has done this before to expand and to build its sprawling parking lots and, its hospitality house.

The appropriation of the school property meant Bon Secours would finally have a vast, continuous campus stretching from Monument Avenue all the way to Patterson Avenue.

Construction work will soon begin, and dangerous materials like asbestos will be cleaned out of the school. The renovations are expected to last 36 months.