Board of Trustees Approves Name for Facility, Groundbreaking Planned
June 12, 2014
COLUMBIA, SC – At the board meeting held Tuesday, June 10, 2014, the Richland School District Two Board of Trustees voted to name the district’s new student learning facility the “Richland Two Institute of Innovation.”
In celebration and to kick off the construction of the new facility, Richland Two will hold an official groundbreaking on Thursday, June 26, 2014, at 9 a.m. The ceremony, which is open to the public, will take place on the 31-acre tract near PLEX Indoor Sports in the Village at Sandhill where the 180,000 square foot facility will be built.
Following the facility’s planned opening in 2016, the Richland Two Institute of Innovation, or R2I2, will serve students from across the district, providing a central location for a collaborative learning environment that supports innovative instruction
Partnerships with higher education institutions as well as business and industry will extend the learning opportunities of the district’s five high schools and advance the district’s career and technology education courses. The academic programs housed at the center will support students as they develop highly specialized and practical skills needed to fill jobs in the workforce.
The Richland Two School Board began planning for the facility when it approved a design-build contract with M.B. Kahn Construction in September 2012, made possible with savings from lower construction costs of recent projects that were budgeted in the 2008 bond referendum.
The $41-million budget for the center includes funding for securing R2I2’s site, as well as designing and building the facility. Part of the budget provides for renovating the District Office located at 6831 Brookfield Road in the Decker Boulevard international corridor, including work already completed to provide safer traffic patterns and parking.
