PROVO — The private Meridian School has a timing problem.
For 15 years, the independent liberal arts prep school has had a home on the corner of 900 East and 300 North, but its lease runs out in May and plans to build a new school in west Provo are bogged down.
The Provo planning commission unanimously approved plans for the two-story school last week but attached several conditions that, along with some financial hurdles, will make it difficult to complete the project by September.
Headmaster David Hennessey is working to make sure the school isn't homeless if the new building isn't ready by fall.
"We're looking at some other contingencies," he said. "We are all committed and determined to go forward, even if I have to tell families we're not quite certain where we'll be when the school year begins. But they've heard that four years in a row."
Developers bought the Meridian property several years ago with the goal of building apartments for Brigham Young University students.
"We've been living on borrowed time for three or four years," said Hennessey, who spent two years searching for an existing building to retrofit into 24 classrooms for more than 200 children.
Faced with the lease's expiration, parents on Meridian's school board purchased the former Geneva steelworkers park at 900 N. 1200 West this past May. They hoped construction on the new school would begin in August. Six months later, stress has replaced excitement as a date for breaking ground remains elusive.
Meridian has been unable to finance a construction bond for the new school, which would include classrooms for up to 340 students — it has 216 now — offices, a gym, a library, an auditorium and a cafeteria.
The proposed school would be built on the east end of the former Geneva Recreation Association Park, which served steelworkers' families for more than half a century. The GRA donated the park in 2003 to Utah Valley State College and UVSC sold it to Meridian for an undisclosed amount.
"We're already converting the money into scholarships," UVSC spokesman Derek Hall said.
The GRA had allowed neighbors to use the otherwise private park, a perk all sides hope to continue when the new school opens.
The planning commission made that a major priority, requiring a written agreement between Provo and Meridian covering public use and liability issues before it will finalize its approval and send the proposal on to the City Council.
The park is zoned for a school, but it is recessed against a hill in the middle of a residential area with narrow streets, and commissioners expressed concern about the school's impact, especially parking overflow during special events.
"If you're going to have a back-to-school night, where are you going to put 340 sets of parents?" commissioner Leonard Mackay said.
The commission attached two parking-related conditions to its approval — an increase in parking spaces from 127 to 132 and creation of a school policy to handle parking for special events.
Only two neighbors expressed concern at the meeting, but a man who lives a few doors down from the park told the Deseret Morning News that he is concerned about an increase in traffic. He guessed the school would add 600 cars a day to narrow, residential streets, but his estimate was low.
A Provo study anticipated the school would add 868 vehicle trips a day to adjacent streets.
Pat Robison has lived in the neighborhood for 32 years, and she is worried about Meridian's fiscal health.
"Whether Meridian is financially viable is a concern," Robison said. "Wal-Mart left a big, empty building in American Fork and look how long Home Base was empty."
Hennessey said Meridian is experiencing its best financial shape in a decade, though it still requires help from parents, donors and the community to make up occasional shortfalls.
"This is a devoted family," Hennessey said. "We have parents, kids and teachers who don't want to be anywhere else."
Robison also questioned the need for a second private school in the area. Ivy Hall Academy, which has 130 students and a 17-year history, is about three blocks away from the proposed Meridian building.
Ivy Hall director Susan Kirby welcomed the competition but said it hasn't been and wouldn't be cutthroat because Ivy Hall is a Christian school with a 90 percent LDS population and Meridian is a secular school.
"I don't think it's a threatening thing because we're very different," Kirby said. "Parents are looking at those differences when they choose between us."
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com