Veritas School purchased Kraemer Hall earlier this month for nearly $1 million. (Mike Platania)
A local private school has snatched up the last piece of its campus that it didn’t already own.
Veritas School this month purchased the three-story building at 1207 Palmyra Ave. for $910,000. The deal was recorded in city property records on Aug. 15.
There are 15 apartment units in the 14,400-square-foot building, which is named Kraemer Hall. The Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond was the seller. A city assessment most recently valued the property at $1.9 million.
“Our primary motivation was to continue to secure the (campus’) footprint,” said Veritas Head of School Keith Nix. “It was the last piece of property on what is our full footprint.”
The building will continue as apartments in the near term, Nix said. The property is zoned R-53 multifamily residential, a designation that allows only for people affiliated with the school to live in the units, Nix said.
“The zoning for us means that tenants in the building have to be in some way a part of Veritas. They’re not allowed by zoning to be leased to the public,” Nix said. “Our faculty and staff will have opportunities to lease those if they so choose.”
However, it likely won’t be used as apartments in the long term. Veritas School is finalizing a campus master plan with Glave & Holmes Architecture, and Nix said Kraemer Hall is set to be used for a variety of things as other projects begin.
“The way we think Kraemer will be used in the future will likely be swing space while we work on other parts of the campus. We’ll have to take buildings offline to renovate or so forth,” he said.
Other projects in Veritas’ master plan include new athletic and track-and-field facilities, a student life building for its upper school and an arts center.
Veritas has been busy buying buildings in recent years, spending nearly $3 million on three buildings on its campus in 2017 and $1.45 million on the former Richmond Memorial Hospital in 2016.
Nix said even though the school now controls the entirety of the land on its current campus, it is not ruling out more land deals in the future, including more than a dozen acres on the Westwood Tract, part of which now houses the under-construction Canopy at Ginter Park apartment project.
“We still hope to acquire, from Union Seminary, some or all of the remaining 19 acres,” Nix said.
Veritas School, a Christian private school teaching pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, has an enrollment of 617 students, up from 587 last year, Nix said. Tuition ranges from $3,500 to $13,120 a year.
The school is financing its expansion in part through a $6.2 million fundraising campaign that it recently completed.
Veritas School purchased Kraemer Hall earlier this month for nearly $1 million. (Mike Platania)
A local private school has snatched up the last piece of its campus that it didn’t already own.
Veritas School this month purchased the three-story building at 1207 Palmyra Ave. for $910,000. The deal was recorded in city property records on Aug. 15.
There are 15 apartment units in the 14,400-square-foot building, which is named Kraemer Hall. The Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond was the seller. A city assessment most recently valued the property at $1.9 million.
“Our primary motivation was to continue to secure the (campus’) footprint,” said Veritas Head of School Keith Nix. “It was the last piece of property on what is our full footprint.”
The building will continue as apartments in the near term, Nix said. The property is zoned R-53 multifamily residential, a designation that allows only for people affiliated with the school to live in the units, Nix said.
“The zoning for us means that tenants in the building have to be in some way a part of Veritas. They’re not allowed by zoning to be leased to the public,” Nix said. “Our faculty and staff will have opportunities to lease those if they so choose.”
However, it likely won’t be used as apartments in the long term. Veritas School is finalizing a campus master plan with Glave & Holmes Architecture, and Nix said Kraemer Hall is set to be used for a variety of things as other projects begin.
“The way we think Kraemer will be used in the future will likely be swing space while we work on other parts of the campus. We’ll have to take buildings offline to renovate or so forth,” he said.
Other projects in Veritas’ master plan include new athletic and track-and-field facilities, a student life building for its upper school and an arts center.
Veritas has been busy buying buildings in recent years, spending nearly $3 million on three buildings on its campus in 2017 and $1.45 million on the former Richmond Memorial Hospital in 2016.
Nix said even though the school now controls the entirety of the land on its current campus, it is not ruling out more land deals in the future, including more than a dozen acres on the Westwood Tract, part of which now houses the under-construction Canopy at Ginter Park apartment project.
“We still hope to acquire, from Union Seminary, some or all of the remaining 19 acres,” Nix said.
Veritas School, a Christian private school teaching pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, has an enrollment of 617 students, up from 587 last year, Nix said. Tuition ranges from $3,500 to $13,120 a year.
The school is financing its expansion in part through a $6.2 million fundraising campaign that it recently completed.