Veritas School snags more Northside real estate in deal with Union Presbyterian Seminary

The 1930s-era building is now owned by the Veritas School. (Mike Platania photos)

School may be out of session, but a Northside private school is keeping busy this summer with a seven-figure real estate deal. 

Last week Veritas School purchased two properties, at 1200 and 1204 Palmyra Ave., for $1.4 million.

The parcels add about 1 acre to Veritas’ campus, which now totals around 19 acres. Veritas is a private, Christian school that offers junior kindergarten through 12th-grade education.

Keith Nix

While 1200 Palmyra is mostly a parking lot, 1204 Palmyra Ave. is home to Paisley Hall, a two-story, Colonial revival house that totals about 8,500 square feet. Keith Nix, Veritas’ head of school, said it’s planning to use Paisley Hall as classroom space for the upper school, which includes grades seven through 12. 

Veritas bought the real estate from its neighbor, Union Presbyterian Seminary, which had owned it for decades. The city valued the two parcels at a combined $927,000 in their most recent assessment. 

Veritas is amid a master planning process for its campus, and Nix said it had initially been planning a new-construction, multiuse upper school building as the first phase of the master plan. But Paisley Hall fills that need.

“We had been interested in (Paisley Hall) for basically the last 10 years, and (the seminary) just were not ready to sell,” Nix said. “When it became available, it allowed us to redirect our next building, which will now be a gym and auditorium.”

The deal did not include a single-family home at 1202 Palmyra Ave., between the two parcels. Nix said if the opportunity arose to add that to the Veritas campus, the school would pursue it, but that’s not a priority. 

Veritas is demolishing the former Richmond Memorial Hospital building. The Laburnum House, pictured left, is planned to be renovated.

Construction crews are active on Veritas’ campus at 1311 Palmyra Ave., where the school is razing the former Richmond Memorial Hospital that had fallen into disrepair. Nix said the hospital site is where it is planning to build the new gym and auditorium. 

“They’re making really good progress (on the demolition) and should be done in about a month,” Nix said, adding that the hope is to begin work on the gym this time next year. 

The formal master plan for Veritas’ campus is still in development. The school is working with Glavé & Holmes Architecture on the endeavor.

Nearly 700 students are enrolled at Veritas. Annual tuition ranges from $14,560 to $16,120.