The Warren County School Board has abandoned its plan to build a school bus maintenance facility in the former Architectural Millwork uilding on U.S. Route 340-522 and will instead build it in the parking lot of the former Avtex Fibers plant on Kendrick Lane, officials said.

Board Chairman Robert D. Kellam said Tuesday that the board decided the Avtex lot is the best place for the facility and any further negotiations on the Architectural Millwork site would be a waste of time. The board has directed School Superintendent Nancy C. Vance to ask Realtors Adams and Nelson of Winchester to return the board’s $5,000 deposit on the Millwork property and let the county know it wants the Avtex lot, he said.

"I think that Avtex is really our only good, available option, right now," Kellam said. "It’s centrally located and it’s the best economic option for us, as well. Plus, when you don’t have any choice, you’ve got to take what you can get."

The board has been looking for a place to build its transportation facility for more that two years, since the former facility on east Criser Road burned down in 1997. The board has housed its buses in a temporary site on North Royal Avenue, but that site doesn’t meet the school system’s needs, Ms. Vance said.

"It’s not big enough," she said. "The men have to work outside and in the winter that’s just too much to ask of them. We also have to pay rent on that site so it’s costing us money every month that we could be using for other things."

The board has had considerable trouble finding a place for the planned facility. The Front Royal Planning Commission rejected a proposal to build it at Ressie Jeffries Elementary School because of zoning considerations, and the county Planning Commission twice rejected a proposal to build in the Millwork building, citing cost and safety concerns.

After the second rejection, the Board of Supervisors said it would make the parking lot at Avtex available for the facility. The supervisors had offered the board the land before, but couldn’t deliver it because of complications surrounding the transfer of the Superfund site from a bankruptcy trustee in Pennsylvania to the county Economic Development Authority.

Now that the transfer appears imminent, authority Director Stephen A. Heavener said he thinks the land will be available for the board’s use, if it needs it.

"In a perfect world, we would not have a school bus garage located on a site where we are trying to attract viable, white-collar businesses," he said. "But I think we can work it out so that it won’t disrupt our plans too much, if that’s what the board asks us to do."

Ms. Vance said the board is willing to use some of the insurance money it got when the old transportation facility burned down to pay about $7,000 an acre for the 10 acre parking lot.

Kellam said he too wants to get onto the Avtex lot as soon as possible.

"At this point, we don’t have any specific design for the facility, but we don’t want it to be something that will ruin the EDA’s plans," he said. "We will take all discretionary measures to make sure that we have a building that is attractive and will not detract from the EDA’s plans for the area."