EXCLUSIVE: The former Mowbray College site will reopen as a high school next year, the owner has revealed.
Intaj Khan, a Wyndham businessman and councillor, bought the site of the former college in 2012 for $6.7 million.
He revealed to Star Weekly that in March he was offered $10.5 million from developers keen to turn the site into a shopping centre and parking lot.
But Mr Khan said he knocked back the chance to make almost $4 million because he was determined to reopen it as a school.
“We could have taken the money and gone away, what a nice payout that would have been,” Mr Khan said. “[But] the community can be confident that we are not here to make money, we are here for the long term.
“This school won’t have any financial issues.”
Mr Khan revealed that initial plans to turn the campus into a primary school had been abandoned. Pending approval from the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, it would instead be reopened as a secondary school by the start of next year.
“The facilities and the buildings were made to suit a secondary school,” he said.
“Even though we could have changed all the buildings, we did a study and found that there is a greater need for secondary schools in this area.”
The school will be renamed West Lakes Grammar School. Expressions of interest are now being accepted for years 7 and 8 students.
Mr Khan said the school would accept 120 students in the first year and would grow steadily to meet its 472-student capacity.
Former principal of Eltham College David Warner was named as the chief consultant and interim principal for the school.
Mr Warner said a search for the first full-time principal had now been launched.
“This will become the creative ideas centre of Caroline Springs,” he said.
The person we want for principal will need to be an educator, but we are not just looking for a manager or an administrator.
“They need to be forward-thinking and in touch with the community, and they need to be able to relate with young people and the teachers.
“We don’t want someone who will just lock themselves away in their office.”
Mr Warner said the school would be set up with wireless technology and the students would be encouraged to use their phones to access information.
Mr Khan said West Lakes Grammar would be a non-denominational private school. In the future he hoped to extend the size of the school and add more buildings.
Mowbray College’s three campuses closed down in June 2012 after it was announced the college had debts of more than $18 million.
