Atlanta International Montessori School Sets Sights on Candler Park church

A vacant Candler Park church on the fringes of Little Five Points is poised to become a second location for Atlanta Montessori International School.

A sale of the property at 1240 Euclid Ave. to the Montessori school is pending. An application for a special-use permit to operate as a school/day care also is underway. The building — originally the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church — was the home of the Vision Church of Atlanta for three years until last October.

“Their application looks pretty straightforward,” said Randy Pimsler, who heads the zoning committee for the Candler Park Neighborhood Organization. The zoning committee will review the school’s application at its next regular meeting on April 6.  “Based on what I’ve seen so far, I don’t expect there to be any push-back from the neighborhood,” Pimsler said.

Atlanta Montessori International School, or AMIS, currently has two adjacent properties on Cliff Valley Way in the North Druid Hills area. Zaki Swaray-Rowe is the owner and head of the school, which she launched with just six students in 2004. The school has since grown to serve 160 students, ages 14 months to sixth grade. (The very youngest are in the “nido” classroom, which means “nest” in Italian).

Prior to starting AMIS, Swaray-Rowe operated a Montessori school for a decade in London, she said.

“The time has come to expand,” she said. “We’ve had waiting lists since the second year we were open.” She added that Candler Park seems to have a need for more preschool and daycare options. “We’re an international school with students who represent 48 nationalities.”

Swaray-Rowe believes the 1.6-acre Euclid Avenue site “will suit our expansion needs very well. It has the area for playground, enough green space and parking.”

Built in the 1930s, the church just one block off Moreland Avenue has approximately 10,000 square feet on two levels. The lower level includes classrooms, offices, a conference area and a spot for a possible kitchen. The site is zoned for “multi-family residential-conditional,” which includes the potential for such components as a church, community center, school or event facility.

Bull Realty marketed the property, offering an $8,700-a-month lease, but Swaray-Rowe’s interest to buy the building outright, led to the purchase deal. The sale price is confidential while the property remains under contract.

Pimsler, of the Candler Park zoning committee, said that part of his concern is to know what the immediate neighbors have to say about a property changing purpose.

Dana Armour, a resident of the Old Fourth Ward, is a co-owner of the Euclid Avenue property. He said that he has already spoken to some specific neighbors who gave “push back” in the past when the church was being considered for high-density redevelopment. This time around, he said some of the neighbors who live closest to the property seem to be OK with a Montessori school as the new neighbor.

“We couldn’t be happier about this sale and what it will mean for the neighborhood,” Armour said. “You never know about a church and its future. The neighbors do care about it not being razed. And they didn’t want high density or commercial. For 80 percent of the neighbors, I’d say the biggest issue is anything that impeded traffic.”

After Pimsler’s zoning committee meets next week, it will make a recommendation to the Candler Park Neighborhood Organization, which is expected to vote on the matter at its next meeting on April 18. From there, the special-use issue will go before Neighborhood Planning Unit-N, which includes Candler Park before it can go to the Board of Zoning Adjustment.

Swaray-Rowe hopes the process will go smoothly enough so she can have her school up and running by September. Backup: a January 2012 opening.

She does not expect the building to meet needs over the long term and already aims to build another structure on the lot. Possibilities: a gym, administrative space, or more classrooms, she said.

Is she at all concerned that there is already a Montessori program on this side of Ponce de Leon Avenue? Montessori In Town currently has 77 pre-elementary students in classrooms at one of two campuses: at Druid Hills Baptist Church at Ponce de Leon and North Highland avenues, and at Glen Castle, 750 Glenwood Ave., in Grant Park.

“I think we can work together,” Swaray-Rowe said.

“I see it [the Candler Park location] as a complement as opposed to competition. I think I will refer students to her and she will refer students to me,” she said of Maureen Walter, founder and executive director of Montessori In Town, which opened in 2005.

Walter’s reaction: “I’m stunned that another accredited Montessori school would open in such proximity to our school, located less than a mile away. This community knows that I am starting an elementary school program in August that I have been carefully crafting and nurturing for many years.”

Walter has been a resident of Inman Park for 30 years and a Montessori educator for 33 years.

“We want to support each other,” Swaray-Rowe said. “Hopefully, having both of us in the same area will make each school better.”