Group pursues dream of Irving community center

Roughly, the idea is to take a big, empty school building and create a community hub that will help revitalize the east side Rustic Hills area.

Now the small group that gathered over breakfast Monday morning to discuss the idea has about a month to put together a formal plan and submit it to Colorado Springs School District 11.

There’s plenty of interest from community groups that would like space in the 112,000-square-foot Irving Middle School building on North Murray Boulevard. The school closed in May.

The so-called Irving Village Committee wants to propose a partnership with the district to run an intergenerational community center that would provide such services as vocational job training for adults, community gardens and a home for some community agencies.

As they discussed multiple possibilities, a newcomer to the group, the Rev. Larry Howard of Central United Methodist Church, honed in on the key question: Who has the dollars?

“I’m always thinking about who has the money to carry these things out,” he said, suggesting grants and partnerships with businesses and professional groups.

D-11 officials said they expect to post a request for proposals this week for those interested in buying, leasing or entering into a partnership to use Irving and two other district facilities, Ivywild Elementary School and Bijou Alternative School. The proposals will be due in late August.

Attorney Pete Lee said he’d draft an “expression of interest” letter that community groups could sign to include in the proposal.

The Irving Village Committee will meet again at 7:30 a.m. Aug. 10 at the Village Inn at Palmer Park and Academy boulevards. For more information contact Delia Armstrong Busby at rubusy1@comcast.net or Irene Kornelly at ikornelly@pcisys.net.

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Call the writer at 636-0251.