By Tena Lee • Hendersonville Star News • February 17, 2009

Davidson Academy officials could break ground on the site of a new campus in Hendersonville as early as this spring after recently accepting an offer for their Nashville campus.

The private interdenominational Christian school purchased 76 acres on Drakes Creek Road along Vietnam Veterans Boulevard in April of 2006. The school had been trying to sell their current campus on Old Hickory Boulevard.

“We have a pending sale,” said the school’s President Dr. Bill Chaney. Chaney declined to name the prospective buyer of the school’s current 65-acre campus.

Chaney added the terms of the sale require the school to obtain construction financing within the next 120 days.

“This is contingent on our ability to get the underwriting for tax exempt bonds,” said Chaney. “We have four months to do that.”

Chaney added if financing is obtained, the school would close on the sale of its current campus in four months and immediately begin Phase I of its building program in Hendersonville. Phase I includes a 83,000-square-foot building which would eventually become the school for the lower grades, but could serve any combination of grades at first. Chaney said Phase I of the school’s building program would take about a year to complete.

“We hope to get started this spring and be in this building by the fall of 2010,” he added.

Chaney said he believes that by relocating to Hendersonville, the school’s enrollment could increase as much as 20 percent.

“Obviously this will provide newer and more functional facilities for our programs,” said the principal, who has headed the school since its inception in 1980. Besides new facilities, a Hendersonville zip code will enhance the school as well, he added.

“We are told every day that there is a demand for a school like ours in Hendersonville.”

Construction drawings and specifications are complete for the lower school building and are in the approval process with the city of Hendersonville and the state fire marshal’s office, Chaney said. Plans for the Upper School academic building and the arts and athletic complex are in the schematic design phase.

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