A community center which had been demolished in 2023 in Jasper County is now one step closer to being rebuilt after Jasper County Council approved moving forward with plans to help bring it back.
The Coosawhatchie Community Center, which had been located at 200 Step School Road outside of Ridgeland, is now in the beginning processes of being rebuilt.
Three years ago, Jasper County officials said the building needed to be demolished due to mold in the interior and asbestos in the roof. The deterioration in the building made it uninhabitable, officials said.
Jasper County Council voted unanimously during its Sept. 8 meeting to approve an ordinance to move forward with an application which commits to a cost share for a $750,000 for a Community Development
Block Grant. The grant, if received, would go towards the funding of the construction of the new Coosawhatchie Community Center.
The resolution authorizes Interim Jasper County Administrator Jim Iwanicki to submit the grant application for consideration.
“This resolution simply states that council recognizes the need to provide a community center for the citizens of the Coosawhatchie area,” Jasper County Development Services Division Director Eric Lawson said during the meeting. “This grant is through the S.C. Department of Commerce Division of grant administration for community enrichment funds. It is a CDBG program and it is funded through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The grant application is being prepared by the Lowcountry Council of Governments (LCOG) with the help of staff members.”
The county, Larson said, is working in conjunction with LCOG on the grant application.
The maximum grant amount allowed by the program is $750,000 with a ten percent cost match and the grant is for three years.
Larson said with county council is committing to a minimum of $75,000 towards the project budget cost to match the CDBG grant.
“The funds for this are currently in the fiscal year 2027 capital projects fund and that’s where the money would come from should we get the grant and this project goes forward,” Larson said. “The interim county administrator will be authorized to prepare and submit the grant application for the project with a commitment of at least $75,000 towards the $750,000 grant up to the $2,250,000 in additional funds needed to complete the project.”
The project, Larson said, is budgeted at $3 million.
Councilman Gene Ceccarelli thanked those in the county who had worked on the project.
“We had the town hall meeting (concerning the Coosawhatchie Community Center), that was very well done a couple of weeks ago and we had a good turnout of about 40 people,” he said. “We are moving forward which is a good thing.”
Larson said the county is continuing to keep in touch with community members who are interested in seeing the center rebuilt and the meetings were scheduled to continue. He said the discussions focused on what the needs would be for the center and what would be included in the center and fine tuning those community needs.
“We are intending for this to be our top project, and we are using our capital funding towards this project,” Larson said.
Council chairman Joey Rowell thanked Larson and all of those who helped move the process forward with the grant application.
“We have shown that we want to get the community center in Coosawhatchie back open and operating and I think there’s a lot of community center advocates out here in the crowd today that want to see it back thriving again. This is a step in the right direction to get us into there so hopefully we can continue to make strides with it.”
History of the Coosawhatchie Community Center
The Coosawhatchie Community Center began as the Coosawhatchie Elementary School, and in 1957 the school opened and African American children from several communities, including Coosawhatchie, Gillisonville, and Pocotaligo attended the facility. It was not until the late 1960’s during integration that the school closed due to a new public school opening in Ridgeland.
The building then became a place where senior citizens gathered as well as a place for a Head Start program, a voting precinct and a location for food distribution.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: County seeking $750,000 grant to help rebuild community center
