The district has been working for months with a design team, led by LS3P, a Wilmington-based architecture firm. Much of the process has been conducted in private, including small meetings with a few school board members and county commissioners designed to avoid public meeting law. Some of those conversations were apparently about potential cost-saving measures, given the county’s limited financial resources.
The result of this work is three plans, unveiled earlier this month, that all far exceed the earlier cost estimates. Last year, a cost estimate of upward of $90 million was floated – but refined plans show the least expensive option, a partial renovation that would still leave some key shortcomings unaddressed, would cost $137 million. The other two options are significantly more costly: a $280 million plan, including $30 million for property, to build a new 70-acre facility at a new site, and a $230 million ’hybrid’ plan, which would roll out in four phases over 10 to 12 years, adding new facilities while also upgrading existing ones.
The costs are significant, and could exceed the county’s current borrowing capacity, which is currently around $94 million, though expected to increase to $131 million by the end of next year, and $175 million by the end of 2028. The first two phases of the hybrid plan — priced at $60 million and $75 million — would be more manageable. Additionally, the county is currently getting financial advice about potentially amending its borrowing policy to increase that capacity.
While the most recent cost estimates are considerably higher than in the past, the underlying issues necessitating the overhaul are not new.
1999 Plan, NHHS Major repairs leading to the 2025 Master Plan
In 1999, SHARPE Architecture conducted a study while Eddie Anderson, former assistant superintendent of operations, was still working in the school system. Anderson recently left NHCS and now works for LS3P, the firm that conducted the 2025 plan.
The 1999 plan originally had four phases, like the current hybrid, but the price tag was much lower then – $15.4 million (although some of these repairs didn’t include the scale of the 2025 plan). And it identified some of the same problems as the 2025 one – like major repairs that were needed in Main, Brogden Hall, and George West – and the difficulty of finding funding for them.
According to the 25-year-old SHARPE report, “The problems with the deteriorating structures, lack of parking, and non-existent outdoor activity areas would logically lead to a conclusion of relocating the High School to a new campus elsewhere. However, the cost of renovation, while expensive, is still less than replacement costs of the structures. The available funding will not allow replacement of the main building, let alone the entire campus.”
The SHARPE firm also discovered problems with the school’s heating and cooling and electrical systems, lighting, plumbing, and issues with classroom spaces living up to DPI’s recommended square footage for optimal educational outcomes.
Since relatively few changes were made from the 1999 plan, some of those issues started manifesting in 2021 when the floor of Brogden Hall was found to be caving in. The county commission provided $3 million for that emergency fix. Shortly thereafter, the main building was also found to be falling apart, and $9 million was appropriated to repair it in three phases. During this time, the district also had to pay roughly a quarter million dollars to temporarily house students in trailers.
After the emergent renovations of Brogden and the Main building, the commissioners agreed to fund a $300,000 Master Plan study, but the study process was shrouded in secrecy, and getting documentation of the results proved difficult.
Wrangling over public records for the 2025 study
At an April agenda review meeting, NHCS Superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes said that the district had received the NHHS plans from the developers, so WHQR put in a request for them (as did other media outlets, including Port City Daily).
Throughout April, WHQR emailed and called the district about the records fulfillment and they maintained that they hadn’t received anything from the design team – meaning there was nothing to turn over. Then, on June 3, Assistant Superintendent Rob Morgan gave an update to the board, saying that commissioners and school board members were meeting in small groups to discuss the draft plans from LS3P, essentially avoiding open meetings law. Since no more than two commissioners or three school board members — which would represent a quorum, grounds for an official meeting – the law doesn’t require these gatherings to be announced, or for minutes to be taken. This same approach, sometimes known as “serial meetings,” has been used by commissioners in the past in a host of situations, including early discussions of the sale of NHRMC to Novant.
Morgan indicated that the plans would not be unveiled until July, but the existence of drafts – implied by Morgan’s comments – means that the district was potentially withholding public documents, which would be a violation of the state’s public records law. WHQR engaged the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to send a demand letter for the drafts of the NHHS presentations. School board members Pat Bradford and Josie Barnhart supported the later release but members Judy Justice and Tim Merrick did not, as drafts, according to case law, are public records unless they contain confidential information, which then can be redacted out.
District officials clearly would have preferred to keep the NHHS plans under wraps until they were publicly unveiled during the July 8 meeting, when they were on the agenda for an information presentation. But, under pressure, they released the plans to the media and public.
After the July presentation was sent to the public, according to Barnes, they mistakenly missed drafts sent to the former director of facility planning and construction LeAnn Lawrence, who has since left the district to work at NCDPI. Those drafts included an April presentation from LS3P and an engineering study by GEA Engineers+Architects that cost upward of $24,800 to complete (WHQR asked the district for the official receipt and has yet to hear back).
This GEA study showed that most NHHS buildings have no wall insulation and several buildings were rated in poor condition, like Main (walls), Princess Street Gym (walls and roof), Brogden (roof, walls, and windows), and weight room (brick walls).
What hasn’t been produced was an in-depth presentation that was shown during the small group meetings in May to commissioners and school board members.
However, the way these presentations were conducted may have allowed them to skirt public records law. Officials, including Barnes and county staff, said that no physical or digital media changed hands during these presentations – in other words, LS3P representatives brought the presentation either on their own laptop or a thumb drive or other hard drive device, played the presentation, and then left without a file ending up on a public computer or email account.
The presentations appear to have represented a developmental phase of the plans that was different from what was shown in public in July. WHQR reviewed a screenshot of one of the presentation slides, which listed three options, ranging from $133 million to $181 million. The slide didn’t include the price tag for possible land purchases, which the July presentation did.
WHQR reached out to Charles Boney, one of the main LS3P developers, to get his perspective and didn’t hear back.
Commissioners, county manager discuss serial meetings
While County Manager Chris Coudriet didn’t respond to reasons why these meetings took place in small groups, Democratic Commissioner Stephanie Walker wrote, “It is my strong opinion that because this particular discussion will be very impactful to the community on multiple fronts, and that we should have an open joint meeting about it.”
While Morgan had suggested officials provided feedback, Walker added that she “personally did not give any direction or suggest changes to the plan. I assumed it was an information session only.”
However, her colleague, Dane Scalise, wrote to WHQR that his feedback was given “in light of (1) the various other capital needs of the school system in addition to the very real one at NHHS and (2) the finiteness of our bond capacity, could we please also explore additional options that would potentially reduce costs?”
Coudriet also said he gave input on how the payments for school could be structured.
“The complexity of the work because of the site most likely will take phases and years (a layperson opinion I expressed). The bond capacity of the county for a single issuance right now cannot meet the financial requirements of the work (a policy fact I expressed). The financing plan for New Hanover County likely needs to be considered for funding in a variety of capital approaches – general obligation, limited obligation, 2/3 third bonding and in multiple issuances (an administrative opinion I offered),” he wrote.
He added that the public should know that the county’s bond capacity has to cover all their fiduciary responsibilities, not just school capital projects. He mentioned paying for updates to CFCC, libraries, museums, parks, fire stations, solid waste facilities, and infrastructure projects for water and sewer.
NHHS AdvoCats’ take on July plans
For several years now, the New Hanover AdvoCats, a nonprofit organization, have been behind the push to fix the high school. It’s led by Allison McWhorter and Kassie Remple, who have presented to the school board on several occasions about the needs of their school. They’ve also been meeting with elected officials, asking how they’re going to get the necessary funding.
McWhorter said it’s likely the school board and the commissioners would pursue the hybrid plan where the high school repairs and building would be done in four phases over a span of three years each. This is because of the total cost of $230 million – with $60 million for Phase 1 (a new building that has an auto shop, dining hall, band/orchestra room, student union/culinary arts space), then $75 million for Phase 2 (full renovation of the Main building), $56 million for Phase 3 (renovation of Brogden Hall and new connector buildings to Main), and then $42 million for Phase 4 (renovation of George West and new athletic complex at 13th and Ann).
The idea is that voters would have to approve a bond every two years to procure the funds through property taxes, but McWhorter wants to see this happen more quickly.
“If we start, theoretically, in 2026, let's say best case scenario, then we're looking at almost 2040 for it to be completed, and that's just not a solution. That's a delay tactic, and that fails our students,” she said.
McWhorter further questioned why Phase I and Phase IV couldn’t be completed around the same time frame, saying the commissioners and the school board should find that money now.
“How many students are being affected and staying in the rotten building(s) until we can maybe, maybe not, get a bond?” she asked.
Another fear she has, also voiced by Merrick during the July presentation, is that if the money is procured in phases it runs the risk of voters not approving it every two years. She also talked about the real costs of delaying the construction, as inflation causes the expenses to rise.
“So as a taxpayer in the community, I'd rather pay for it once. Go ahead and let the students start using it,” she said. According to documents from the NHCS finance committee, each of their building projects have scheduled increments of time for design, development, finalizing construction plans, bidding/permitting, construction, and post-construction. This whole process takes 3-5 years.
This hybrid plan currently relies on funding from a future bond but McWhorter wants elected officials to tap other sources, but those are few and far between — and the county can only take on so much debt; however, they could change their policy surrounding their debt limit.
Port City Daily reports, the county’s current debt is $440 million — and it’s mainly taken up by NHCS ($116 million), CFCC ($63 million), Project Grace ($51 million), the Government Center ($35 million), NHC fire stations ($26 million), and the Northchase Library ($12 million).
Including New Hanover High School, the district has at least a half a billion dollars in infrastructure improvements and building needs.
What’s next
LS3P hasn’t produced the final report on New Hanover High, which will be out in August and subject to public records law. In addition to details on the renovation and construction, it will have documentation from the community listening sessions and the surveys they conducted about a reimagined high school.
Concurrently, it’s on elected officials to figure out which plan to choose — and how they are going to pay for it. Statutorily, it is the county commission’s responsibility to pay for public school capital projects, but the legislature could plausibly allocate funds. In Governor Josh Stein’s budget proposal, which almost certainly will not make it into the Republican General Assembly’s final plan, there was a state bond request to fund $4 billion in capital projects for the state's public schools. In this plan, New Hanover County Schools would have received $61 million for building projects.
And then there’s The Endowment. Former CEO Dan Winslow said previously, he didn’t want his organization to be the initial funder for capital projects but said they could fill gaps at the backend. In March, The Endowment did approve a request of $7.5 million to support a state aquarium facility at Fort Fisher, but now that Winslow is out — that strategy could change. Commissioner LeAnn Pierce told Port City Daily she’d like to see them step up for NHHS.
Ultimately, for McWhorter and the New Hanover High community, they hope both elected officials and the public alike will financially support what it takes to reinvent the school.
“I think most people are going to look at this in terms of finances, and it's really hard if you don't feel like you're connected to New Hanover High School, but if we think about it in terms of students impacted and community impact versus financial impact, I think we can agree that it just makes sense to take care of all of our students, but to take care of the these New Hanover High School students who have not had what our other high school students have had for at least 25 years, but arguably longer,” she said.
Below: The 1999 NHHS master plan and the presentation on NHHS options from this month.
NHHS Master Plan 1999 by Ben Schachtman on Scribd
