The School in a Former Mall: Inside Coral Springs' Decade-Long Fight to Move Its Charter School

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• An A-rated school inside a failed shopping mall
• Who actually owns this school
• The graveyard of relocation plans
• Why this attempt is different
• The domino nobody saw coming: the Sportsplex
• The money problem behind all of it
• What it means for property owners
• What to watch next
• The bottom line
• Quick Reference
• Frequently Asked Questions

An A-rated school inside a failed shopping mall

Drive past the southeast corner of Sample Road and University Drive and you are looking at one of the more unusual facts in Coral Springs: roughly 1,700 kids go to school inside a building that started life as a shopping mall.

The building at 3205 N. University Drive went up in 1977 as an enclosed mall, the former Coral Springs Mall. When the mall failed, the nearly vacant structure was converted into a school. Coral Springs Charter School opened in 1999, a joint effort between Charter Schools USA and the City of Coral Springs, and it has been there ever since: a tuition-free public charter serving grades six through 12 across more than 147,000 square feet of repurposed retail space.

Here is the part that makes it more than a curiosity: the school is good. It has been rated an "A" for years, and it is well known for a long waiting list, more than 2,300 students on it as of a recent enrollment cycle. Coral Springs residents receive an enrollment preference, though so do several other groups (siblings of current students, children of Charter Schools USA and city employees, and active-duty military families), and when applications exceed available seats, placement goes to a random lottery. Admission is not guaranteed. The Panthers field teams in everything from football to marching band. The motto is "Once a panther, always a panther."

It is also, by the repeated admission of the people who run the city, in the wrong building.

"The charter school has to move, hands down it has to move," then-Vice Mayor Dan Daley said back in 2017. "It is in the worst location conceivable."

Nine years later, it still hasn't moved. But something changed this summer, and for the first time in a decade the odds look genuinely different.

Who actually owns this school

This trips people up, so it's worth being precise, because it explains why the city is the one making these decisions.

The City of Coral Springs owns the land and the building, and the city holds the charter. It contracts with Charter Schools USA to operate the school on the city's behalf. That's an unusual arrangement, and it means the school's facility problems are the city's facility problems, and its relocation is a city commission decision rather than a school district one.

One more thing worth clearing up, because it comes up every time this is discussed: the city does not use its own property-tax or sales-tax revenue to operate the school. City Manager Catherine Givens told commissioners in February 2026 that the charter operator is funded through state and other education sources rather than city tax dollars. The school's operating revenue comes primarily through the Florida Education Finance Program, the state's per-student funding formula, along with other eligible education funding. The point residents care about holds: running the school is not a draw on the city's tax base.

The building, though, is another matter. That's the city's, and it's aging.

The graveyard of relocation plans

Over roughly the past decade, the city has floated site after site. Every one of them died, and mostly for the same reason: residents did not want to give up a park.

The Performing Arts Center parking lot. Killed over traffic concerns, given the proximity to Parkside Elementary, St. Andrew Catholic School, and surrounding neighborhoods.

Mullins Park. Proposed more than once, including a 2018 plan to build between the Coral Springs Gymnasium and the police and fire buildings, with a design brief calling for a campus-like environment with pedestrian connections to both. Residents objected to losing green space.

Betti Stradling Park, 2017. This is the one that shows what the city is up against. The park at 10301 Wiles Road exists because residents made it exist: it was created in 1996 by volunteers who fought off the city's plan to let businesses bid on the land, beating out proposals that reportedly included a Baltimore Orioles training camp, a museum, and talk of a new City Hall.

When the city proposed putting the school there, city illustrations showed the building and parking garage taking up about a third of the property. More than 100 residents packed a town hall, many wearing green shirts, and handed the city manager a binder containing more than 4,200 signatures against the plan.

"We don't want our parks taken away from our children," one resident, who had bought her home 14 years earlier to live near the park, told the Sun Sentinel. "We want our green spaces and not a three-story building there with concrete." The plan was abandoned.

The Tamarac Sports Complex, 2018. The city didn't just float this one, it voted for it. The plan was a two-story building on seven acres at the Tamarac Sports Complex, rebranded as the "Coral Springs-Tamarac Charter School," with capacity for 2,500 students versus roughly 1,600 at the time. Then-Mayor Skip Campbell called it a thrill. Parents were less thrilled: the site was about seven miles from the existing school, in another city.

"It's going to take me forever to get my son to this new location," one parent said at the meeting. "I don't know what they were thinking moving this so far, and to another city?" It never happened.

Meanwhile the building kept aging. In May 2021, the commission approved a change order adding $498,690 to a roofing contract that had started at $177,000, bringing it to $675,690, with roughly $348,690 of that going to the charter school's leaking roof.

Then-Vice Mayor Joshua Simmons put it plainly: "It's like a car. Do you keep dumping money into it, or do you get a brand new one to try to stave off all of the different repairs that are happening?"

Why this attempt is different

Three things have changed, and together they're why this round has a real chance.

First, the site isn't a park.

The current plan puts the school on city-owned land in the civic complex area near the police department and the Coral Springs Gymnasium, in the vicinity of Coral Springs Drive and Royal Palm Boulevard. Reporting has described it as vacant city-owned land at 2501 Coral Springs Drive next to the police department, and as a city-owned plot on Royal Palm Boulevard adjacent to the gymnasium.

Because the proposed location is undeveloped city property rather than an established public park, it may avoid the green-space opposition that defeated previous relocation proposals. That single difference removes the obstacle that killed the last several attempts.

Second, there are actual renderings.

Harvard Jolly PBK produced preliminary designs for a modern, colorful, two-story campus. According to the plans, it would include a science lab, an athletic complex, vocational and technical education labs, a gymnasium, a student lounge, and multiple classrooms including one focused on dropout prevention. A new parking area could be built next to the Coral Springs Gymnasium, with existing lots in the area used by staff and students.

The location carries some practical advantages the renderings call out: modernized classrooms and athletics areas, room to grow enrollment, easy access to the nearby Coral Springs Center for the Arts and the fields at Mullins Park, and the fact that police and firefighters could reach the school quickly from their adjacent facilities.

On timing, the renderings estimate the campus would take roughly 21 months to build once permitting is complete, with the project running about three years overall.

City spokesperson Lindsey Steinberg has been careful to note that nothing is settled. "It is important to note that these are preliminary renderings to receive feedback from community stakeholders," she said. Fair caveat. But a decade of relocation talk without drawings is different from relocation talk with drawings.

Third, and most importantly, an outside partner might cover much of the cost.

At a June 24, 2026 city commission workshop, City Manager Catherine Givens described a financing arrangement that got everyone's attention: Charter Schools USA is discussing a package that city officials say could cover as much as roughly $70 million of the project cost that the city would not have to fund. Negotiations and the financing structure were not finalized.

The city was hoping to reach an agreement this fall. Because the land is vacant, officials said the school could potentially be moved within about three years.

The prospect of the operator covering a large share answers the objection residents have been raising since at least 2018, when one commenter on a city post wrote: "Not opposed to a move, but make USA Charter pay for the building and relocation."

The domino nobody saw coming: the Sportsplex

Here's the wrinkle that ties this to the other big project in town, and it's the most interesting piece of the whole story.

The proposed charter school campus sits next to the Coral Springs Gymnasium, and the plan could incorporate that gymnasium. Under that scenario, some or all of the gym's current functions would eventually shift to new facilities at the Sportsplex across town.

Which means the two projects are locked together. And in June, the commission chose the school.

At that June 24 workshop, commissioners decided to prioritize the charter school relocation over advancing the Sportsplex. They directed staff to slow or pause major Sportsplex design and development spending, though limited planning, sponsorship, and investment-development work has continued.

"There are multiple things that are happening with Sportsplex that we kind of need Sportsplex to go first," Givens said. "The natural dominoes fall where it'd be nice to be able to build the gym at Sportsplex, and then have the project thereafter with Charter Schools USA." She was clear it isn't a cancellation: "It's not a yes/no to the actual facility, it's just timing."

Givens said the city needs to get Sportsplex plans to about 30 percent completion to reach a sensible stopping point and keep attracting investment when it resumes, at a cost of roughly $1 million. The city also noted it has two gyms in its facilities, giving it some flexibility in the interim.

The commissioners were direct about the priority.

"Now, the charter school needs to move," Commissioner Joshua Simmons said. "We've been talking about moving that since 2018. It has to move. So however we need to figure that out, our decisions coming out of here, it has to be that we are moving the charter school."

"We've been working on charter school relocation all seven years I've been on the commission," said Commissioner Shawn Cerra, the former principal of J.P. Taravella High School.

On the Sportsplex numbers, the figures have shifted with the proposed scope, and it's worth being upfront about that. Options presented to commissioners in late 2025 ranged from roughly $60 million to more than $250 million. A $153 million concept combining a gymnasium and expanded aquatics was one leading option, though that was never approved as a construction budget. By June 2026, as the gymnasium component entered design with PBK Architects selected as the top-ranked firm, city officials and current reporting were generally describing the project under consideration at up to about $100 million. Those figures remain conceptual rather than a final, fully appropriated construction budget. We cover this in depth in our separate piece on the Sportsplex.

The money problem behind all of it

None of this is happening in a vacuum. The city is bracing for a possible revenue hit.

Florida voters are scheduled to decide on Amendment 3 on November 3, 2026. Among other changes, it would increase the homestead exemption to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, and it requires approval from at least 60 percent of voters. If it passes, Coral Springs faces a potentially major revenue shortfall, city budget projections have pointed to a combined loss on the order of $40 million across 2028 and 2029. City Manager Catherine Givens laid out those challenges for commissioners as budget work began.

That uncertainty shaped the June discussion directly. At the June 24 workshop, commissioners rejected building the preliminary budget around an increase from the current 6.0232 mills to a proposed 6.3132 mills to help fund the Sportsplex. There was not enough support for the increase to move forward. The final millage rate and budget still require formal adoption during the September budget process.

"We absolutely need to keep our millage rate the same so that we can show our support to our local businesses and homeowners while re-evaluating every aspect of our budget to find fiscal balance," Commissioner Shawn Cerra said.

Staff have signaled that other levers will be explored instead, including public-private partnerships, increased user fees, naming rights, and revenue diversification. The Charter Schools USA deal is, in effect, the public-private partnership lever being pulled.

Even with the rate held flat, city officials estimated that the average property owner could pay roughly $106 more on their bill, though the actual change would vary by property and service usage, as property values rise along with the cost of fire, water, and garbage services. The budget doesn't get a final vote until mid-September, so changes are still possible.

The city has also scheduled informal budget sessions where residents can ask staff directly how Coral Springs is spending money. As reported, those include a session billed as "Doughnuts with the budget director" at Sartory Hall on August 14, 9 to 10 a.m., and a budget meet-and-greet at Mitch's Downtown Bagel Café on August 17, 10 to 11 a.m. Confirm dates and times at coralsprings.gov before you go, since these can shift.

Those are unusually approachable venues for exactly this kind of question.

What it means for property owners

A few observations, offered as context rather than prediction.

The current site is prime downtown land, and that's part of the point. In 2023 the commission approved a CRA Master Plan covering a 136-acre area centered on Sample Road and University Drive, which includes the Cornerstone development and the rest of the downtown now taking shape. Reporting indicates the charter school relocation is part of the city's broader plan for that area. In other words, moving the school doesn't just solve a building problem, it frees up a large, centrally located parcel in the heart of the district Coral Springs is actively trying to redevelop.

For anyone watching downtown Coral Springs, that's the real story underneath the story.

School quality and access are factors many families weigh when choosing where to live. Coral Springs Charter School's A rating and its enrollment preference for Coral Springs residents can be marketed as a community advantage, though admission remains subject to availability and the school's lottery and preference rules. Replacing a converted mall with a purpose-built campus, with labs, athletic facilities, and room to grow, strengthens that asset rather than diluting it, even if its precise effect on any given home's value is impossible to isolate.

Proximity effects cut both ways, as always. Homes near the new civic-campus site would live with construction and then with traffic patterns around a school of roughly 1,700 students. Homes near the current site would eventually see a large redevelopment parcel change hands. Neither is automatically good or bad, and both depend heavily on the specific block.

And the timeline is genuinely uncertain. Three years is the optimistic case, and it depends on an agreement that had not been finalized as of this writing. This city has announced a charter school relocation before and not delivered one. That history is worth holding in mind.

What to watch next

• The Charter Schools USA agreement. The city was targeting fall 2026. Whether that lands, and on what terms, is the single decision that determines if this actually happens.
• The mid-September budget vote, and the August sessions leading up to it.
• Amendment 3 in November. If it passes, reduced municipal revenue could make major discretionary capital projects harder to finance, particularly those relying on the city's general revenues, including this one.
• Any commission vote on the relocation itself. The renderings are preliminary and nothing is final until the commission votes.

The bottom line

A well-regarded public school has spent more than 25 years inside the converted shell of a shopping mall built in 1977. Over the past decade the city has considered at least four relocation sites, a parking lot, two different parks, and another city entirely, and residents, reasonably protective of their green space, stopped the park plans every time.

Now there's a site nobody is attached to, a set of drawings, and an operator discussing a financing package that could substantially reduce the city's share of the cost. There's also a possible property tax shock in November, a Sportsplex slowed to make room, and a city budget still being written.

After a decade of false starts, that's the closest this has come to real. Whether it gets there should become clear over the next few months.

Quick Reference

The Friendly Scoop covers Broward and Palm Beach County. This article is compiled from City of Coral Springs meetings and records and local reporting, and reflects the state of play as of publication. Plans, figures, and timelines are preliminary and subject to change. For official information and meeting agendas, visit coralsprings.gov.

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