LAKELAND — Changes are coming to the old John Cox Elementary Building on Lakeland Hills Boulevard. While the current tenants are looking forward to moving out to a new home, a tuition-free middle school is waiting in the wings to move in.

Lakeland Volunteers in Medicine planning new facility on Lake Wire

Academy Prep Center a private, tuition-free middle school

Academy Prep hopes to open Summer 2019

Lakeland Volunteers in Medicine currently operates out of the John Cox building. Their planned $4.5 million facility will be located on Lake Wire, near the United Methodist office complex.



Once in their new home, LVIM will be able to see more patients and expand some critical areas.

“We’ll be able to expand mental health, because we’ll be able to design something that is conducive to mental health,” said LVIM president Bobby Yates.



Yates said LVIM hopes to start construction this summer if it gets all the government approvals it needs.

“It’s very exciting," he said. "It’s exciting to me. It’s exciting to the board. The Volunteers are excited about it."



Once LVIM's move is complete, a private, tuition-free middle school for disadvantaged students, The Academy Prep Center, will move into the old school building. The school already has locations in Tampa and St. Petersburg.



Students attend classes for about 11 hours a day and parents have to be involved. Academy Prep is funded by private donations and scholarships.

Once students graduate from the middle school, Academy Prep gets students into private prep schools with full-ride scholarships.

“But they also know they are financially strapped, so they provide full tuition scholarships for all these students," said Head of School Lincoln Tamayo. "Then we work with those students and their families and the schools where we send our kids to make sure they make it all the way through the pipeline."

Getting into Academy will be competitive.

“It is a very, very big deal. It is. It is. There is on other way to put it but to say it is a life changer,” said Tamayo.



Academy Prep hopes to be open for summer classes in 2019. Publix Supermarkets Vice Chairman Barney Barnett has been a driving force in the bringing the school to Lakeland.