Story Created:
Feb 25, 2010 at 12:28 PM PST
Story Updated:
Feb 25, 2010 at 12:28 PM PST
HUNTINGTON PARK — College For Certain, a private company, plans to sell $100 million in bonds for the construction of a charter secondary school on the northwest corner of East 58th Street and Pacific Boulevard and to equip charter schools elsewhere in the city.
The site consists of 13 lots used for automotive sales and one lot containing a single-family home, which will be demolished.
Operation of the new school will be by Aspire Public Schools, a private, nonprofit group based in Compton. It will be known as the Aspire Pacific Academy, serving some 570 students in grades sixth through 12.
Aspire also oversees charter schools at several other locations in Huntington Park.
Charter schools are run by private groups with permission of the public school districts in which they operate. It receives its funds from the state, based on the average daily attendance of students, as do public schools.
The Huntington Park City Council approved sale of the bonds at a public hearing Feb. 16 at which no one spoke. Paying off the loan of the bond sale funds is the responsibility of the borrower, College for Certain.
State law requires the governing body of the charter school’s location to approve such sales. The cities are not responsible for repaying the loan and do not incur any indebtedness or obligation in the payment, said Henry Gray, director of community development.
In separate action Feb. 16, the City Council gave final approval to an ordinance rezoning, from planned industrial development to commercial use, a 3.7-acre site at the northwest corner of 58th Street and Pacific Boulevard, the site of the former Sopp Chevrolet Truck dealership.
The zone change and a conditional use permit allows Pacific Charter School Development, a private charter school development company based in Los Angeles, to construct the school for Aspire.
Up to $30 million will be used for construction of the charter school on nine adjoining lots of East 58th Street and lots at 5721-5753 Pacific Blvd. under terms of the city resolution approving the bond sale.
Completion is expected later this year, development officials said. A second school is planned on the site later.
Additional funds from the bond sale would be used to build, remodel and equip the Aspire Titan Academy and Aspire Junior Collegiate Academy on 1.6 acres at 6720-6724 S. Alameda St., serving some 570 students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade.
Proposed in phase one of the Aspire Pacific Academy is a two-story, 32,000-square-foot building on the north side of 58th Street between Pacific Boulevard and Malabar Street.
It would contain 27 classrooms, faculty, administration and counseling rooms, a kitchen, storage and utility areas and a multipurpose room seating 315.
A temporary outdoor recreation area of about 29,200 square feet is planned north of the building along with a 60-space parking lot.
Phase two would include a two-story, 34,000-square-foot building on the south side of 58th Street with 19 classrooms holding about 400 students in grades 7 through 12.
It would include a 2,700-square-foot multipurpose room seating 213, faculty, administration and counseling rooms, a kitchen, storage and utility area and a 9,000-square-foot gym and an outdoor soccer field.
That building would be open in 2012, under developer plans, Gray said.
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