Politics

County depicts Wingate project as partnership model

County Commissioner Grady Hawkins shows a poster about the city-county partnership for a new health sciences building.

By Bill Moss, Published: July 18, 2014

Henderson County Commissioner Grady Hawkins pitched the unprecedented Wingate-BRCC-Pardee project as an example of intergovernmental cooperation during a presentation at the annual convention of the National Association of Counties in New Orleans July 11-14.

Henderson County's delegate was Hawkins, who described the city-county partnership during the County Innovation Poster Session at the New Orleans event. The poster was a visual display of an initiative that would encourage other counties to review and understand how they could start a similar project back home, Henderson County's public relations shop said in a news release. The facility will make it possible for a child to attend kindergarten through a doctoral program within miles of home, never having to leave the community, the poster says.

The Board of Commissioners and Hendersonville City Council, which have had their contentious moments in the past, worked together on the project. The city bought the property and the county will borrow up to $26 million to build a 75,000-square-foot facility to be used by Wingate University, Blue Ridge Community College and Pardee Hospital for classrooms and medical clinics.