Construction begins to accommodate Haywood Innovative
Renovations of the Poplar Building are currently underway.
Lily Levin photo
John Burgin Construction, LLC workers arrived at Haywood Community College’s Poplar Building Jan. 5, marking the start of an estimated 120-day renovation process driven by the addition of middle school called ‘Haywood Innovative’ and managed by the county school system.
Haywood County Schools is renting the building to do “a tenant upfit … They’ve hired an architect, and they’re overseeing that,” said Brek Lanning, the college’s vice president of infrastructure, campus development and technology.
This upfit is necessary to accommodate Haywood Innovative but has much more to do with its sister institution, Haywood Early College.
Starting fall 2026, HEC will be housed in the Poplar building, freeing up the Dogwood building in fall 2026 for Haywood Innovative’s three grade levels and between 80 and 100 total students.
The shift to the Poplar building allows the early college to begin “expanding” its student body, said HEC and Haywood Innovative Principal Lori Fox, adding that it’s “almost double the square footage” of Dogwood.
The school board will make a final evaluation of Haywood Innovative before opening applications to prospective students.
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HCS Superintendent Trevor Putnam told The Smoky Mountain News that Haywood County Schools identified JBC through a bidding process to turn the Poplar building — “the old nursing building” — into a high school.
While the school system is primarily responsible for coordinating the construction, President Shelley White said that the college will be “working in tandem with them on the facility’s needs and being able to locate the school on our campus.”
She added that as 2026 unfolds, “we’ll be able to do more planning around what that calendar looks like and what [HCS’] needs might be with the early college.”
The project will mainly involve cosmetic upgrades to “modernize” the Poplar building, though HCS is also adding walls to change the spatial layout of a few classrooms, said Graham Haynes, HCS associate superintendent.
As for the latter building, Haynes said it’s “in pretty good shape,” though the contract calls for a few minor renovations.
None of these changes should significantly impact parking and traffic flow on HCC campus.
“The bus pickup is going to happen at the same location that currently does. There’ll be a few more people here, but other than that, it shouldn’t be a big change,” Lanning said.
White said she’s excited for future middle schoolers to experience the college’s pre-professional environment.
Haywood Innovative’s location at HCC will grant these students the “opportunity to have more class visits and experiential exposure to some of those career options and pathways and sectors that may be of interest,” she told SMN.
“The purpose of [Haywood Innovative] is two-fold,” said Fox. “One, academic acceleration for all students. So, they’ll be gaining five or more high school credits for their middle school, which will create openings in high school for them to take advantage of accelerated opportunities.”
She described the second tenet as providing “enrichment opportunities” by “aligning university campus and career exploration trips.”
We do those on the early college side, and we’ll also be doing those with middle schoolers,” Fox said.
Those outings may look like a visit to a Makerspace lab that facilitates a student’s realization that they’d like to pursue a career in science.
Last year, early college students toured 10 southern campuses, ranging from the nearby Western Carolina University in Cullowhee to NC State in Raleigh to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Some of these schools might also be explored by Haywood Innovative students.
The middle school will even share something less tangible with HEC — a “good culture,” defined by Fox as students capable of “communicating with teachers and instructors and advocating for their needs.”
HEC alumni, she said, “feel like they have a leg up on other students at their university because they can advocate for themselves.”
Still, Fox stressed that academics and social life at Haywood Innovative will resemble a middle school experience.
“We’ll be exploring the community college campus and all the opportunities here, and we’ll be partnering with the early college teachers, but [our students] will be contained within that middle school.”
