Legacy Early College, K4 Charter School

Legacy Early College, K4 Charter School is a public charter early education – 12th grade school in Greenville, SC. The school receives Title I and New Market Tax Credit funding assistance and represents an excellent example of adaptive reuse.

Legacy Charter‘s master plan expanded their program with a 25,000 SF early education building with 12 classrooms.  The sports and recreation infrastructure were expanded with a 24,000 SF multi-court gymnasium.

Onsite was a pre-engineered metal building that once served as a railroad warehouse. The original plan was to demolish the building to make way for a new 4K facility. Instead, the old warehouse building was repurposed to meet the school’s programming needs while saving construction costs. The facility includes seven classrooms, security vestibule, meeting and office spaces, workroom, nurse’s room and outdoor space.

To transform the metal building into a school building, changes were made to reduce the structure’s industrial feeling. The metal roof deck was left exposed giving a nod to the history of the structure and an intentional decision to make the building feel less like a typical school building. Exterior features like columns and canopies include the school’s colors for branding.

Wayfinding was an important part of the interior design strategy, so the team created color-coded paths that corresponded to each of the six classrooms.

The master plan was used to assist Legacy in rezoning a parcel of their charter early education – 12th grade campus from industrial to educational use. A setback variance was also revised to make the site more neighborhood and pedestrian friendly.