Plans to save historic Huntersville school stalled. Now there’s a lawsuit.
A local couple is suing the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, alleging racial discrimination occurred as they tried to buy the long-shuttered historic Torrence-Lytle School in Huntersville.
For more than a decade, the property has seen on-again, off-again proposals for both preserving the historic school — the first high school for Black students in north Mecklenburg County — and acquiring the land for redevelopment. Many alumni, neighbors and community advocates have complained for years that the property sits in disrepair but should be saved as an important piece of local Black history.
Tyson and Regina Bates, two longtime educators, say they made two offers and tried to buy the property several times over the course of several years. The commission has owned the building since 2007 and, according to public records, has tried to sell it many times.
The Bates’ lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Charlotte, alleges that the commission, a county government agency, has failed to maintain the property and quoted prospective white buyers lower prices for the building. They once were quoted a sell price of more than $400,000, according to the Bates.
Their goal, they said in recent interviews and in the lawsuit, is to restore the building to operate a private school there specifically for local children who would otherwise not be able to afford it.
Their lawsuit is seeking damages for breach of contract, among other claims.
“We want to make sure that we wouldn’t allow these unethical practices to go unaddressed, because there will be someone after us who might attempt the same thing,” Regina Bates said. “And they don’t need to jump through the same hoops and hurdles.”
The lawsuit names as defendants Dan Morrill, well-known local historian and former consulting director for the commission, the historic landmarks commission Executive Director Jack Thomson, and appointed members of the 12-person commission.
Thomson did not return several phone calls from the Observer. Morrill, reached by the Observer this week, refused to take questions but denied claims of discrimination. He was consulting director of the commission for most of the time covered by Bates’ lawsuit.
“My long career in Mecklenburg County can attest to the fact that as much as I can, as a human being, I try to judge each individual based on their core values,” he said. “All of my interactions with the Bates was that they were people who have good core values that were seeking to do a very worthwhile purpose.”
Morrill said the commission’s priority has been to sell the building to a party that will preserve the building.
“That was the only factor taken into account with any prospective buyer,” he said.
Since Morrill’s retirement, the Bates have made multiple attempts to reconnect with the commission, but their emails have gone unanswered, they allege.
History of Torrence-Lytle School
The Torrence-Lytle School opened its doors as the Huntersville Colored School in 1937.
At the time, it was the first and only primary through secondary school option for Black students in rural north Mecklenburg County.
As the landmark education case Brown v. Board of Education was being fought, the school changed its name to honor Isaiah Dale Torrence and Franklin Lytle, who were instrumental in the school’s creation.
Twelve years after schools were desegregated, the school closed. Historic records show that its shuttering impacted the community — it was the “center” of the rural Black community in north Mecklenburg.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission took ownership of the school 15 years ago with plans to preserve the building, which was in disrepair. A few years later, the commission decided to sell it instead.
It’s located in next to the county’s David B. Waymer Recreation & Senior Center in the heart of Huntersville’s Pottstown neighborhood, a historically Black community.
College sweethearts Tyson and Regina Bates, of Charlotte, met as collegiate basketball players at Johnson C. Smith University.
After graduating, Tyson became a professor at UNC Charlotte while Regina taught at a local public school.
But they both felt a calling to do more for the community.
Sixteen years ago, they founded a summer camp called Successful Start Learning Center that’s that has served more than 2,000 students.
The Bates spotted the school in 2015. It felt right, Regina Bates said, that they saw it after “lots of prayer.” After researching the property and discovering it was the site of one of the first schools for Black students in the county, they imagined transforming their summer camp into an affordable private school for local underserved students and housing it in the historic building.
Discrimination lawsuit
In early 2016, the Bates say they met with Morrill to discuss buying the Torrence-Lytle School. The lawsuit says they submitted a proposal to buy it but were continuously asked for documents beyond what the commission sought from other interested buyers, including financial statements and extensive preservation plans.
“It was over and over again that they would send us more questions so we would meet the requirements that they thought were too substantial for us to meet,” Regina Bates said. “And after we met those requirements, they would ask us for more.”
Toward the end of 2016, the lawsuit says, the Bates and the commission had come to an agreement that the couple would buy the school and property for around $148,000. That deal, though, fell through.
The Bates claim the commission proceeded in 2017 with a costly project of removing asbestos from the building. That led to the commission telling the Bates the new sale price was $424,000, according to the lawsuit. When the Bates asked for a 90-day extension because their original loan officer had retired during the nearly year-long process, they were denied and the contract was terminated in Oct. 2017.
Around six months later, another buyer was under contract — for a purchase price of $350,000, “significantly less than that which was offered to the Bates,” the lawsuit states.
After that potential 2018 purchase also fell through, the Bates tried again.
This time, they were given a purchase price of $409,000, according to the lawsuit, and signed a contract in June 2019. But later, the Bates say, the commission requested more money with no explanation. In September, the lawsuit says, the commission terminated the contract with the Bates “abruptly and without explanation.”
Then just a few months later, another buyer, a developer, was in the mix, according to public records and the lawsuit.
The Bates point to that deal from 2020 — which also appears to have since fallen through — as another example of an advantageous sales price being offered to other buyers. In this deal, according to the lawsuit, the commission was under contract to sell the Torrence-Lytle School for $285,000 to a local developer.
The Bates say they still hope to eventually own the building.
“We’re not easily deterred,” Tyson said. “We know that in the space we work in, God has called us to do it. And at the end of the day, we know the community impact will be huge for the children and the people in the surrounding area.”
Faith Fox, their attorney through the Cochran Law Firm, said she was shocked when she first heard about the situation.
“There’s a long standing tradition in this country of redlining and doing all kinds of other illegal things to keep certain people out of certain areas. But I was still shocked because it’s the Historic Landmarks Commission, and you want to believe that they really are standing by their mantra, which is to preserve all of these historic landmarks around the county,” she said.
This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 3:32 PM.
