EDUCATION
Marietta district delays construction
on new Lemon Street campus
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112 FACTBOOK 2021
By Ryan Kolakowski
Marietta residents and members of historic preservation
groups applauded Superintendent Grant Rivera’s 2019
announcement that the Lemon Street Grammar School
building will not be demolished.
Prior to school integration in the 1960s, Marietta’s Black
student population attended Lemon Street Grammar School
before matriculating to Lemon Street High School. The high
school building was razed in 1967, and the grammar school
building, closed in 1972, has been used for storage.
Rivera announced plans in 2019 to construct a replica
Lemon Street High School as the school district’s new
central office on the former high school campus at 353
Lemon Street. The proposal also called for a new board
room, community space and museum at the Lemon Street
Grammar School site, along with possible improvements to
the Marietta Performance Learning Center next door to the
proposed office.
The replica Lemon Street High School will still be built
at 353 Lemon Street under the district’s new plans. In
June 2019, Rivera announced the replica high school will
house the new board meeting room, community space and
museum.
Rivera said the district will renovate and restore the
Lemon Street Grammar School for use as the new Marietta
Performance Learning Center, a program designed to help
students graduate on time.
In May 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic swept the
nation, Rivera announced that construction on the future
central office building on the old Lemon Street High School
campus would be delayed by tax revenue shortfalls.
District officials say architectural planning for the central
office building will continue, as will renovations to the
grammar school, which is slated to include classrooms
for the new Performance Learning Center and alternative
programs.
In June 2020, the Marietta school board approved a $3.5
million renovation of the Lemon Street Grammar School.
Renovations are expected to conclude by January 2021.
The school board approved a builder for the central office
in September, and the district’s original expectation was for
the project to be complete by August 2021. There is no set
date for the central office
project to be complete.
Marietta schools Superintendent Grant Rivera stands in front of the former Lemon Street
Grammar School, which is undergoing renovations as part of a project to construct a
new district central office and honor the history of the Lemon Street campus, where
Marietta’s African American students went to school during segregation.
Pictured right: Rendering of
Superintendent Grant Rivera’s
plans for a new central office.
- Special
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