Dist. 204 to quit fighting for land

[proschool]

Dist. 204 to quit fighting for land
Brach-Brodie site owners could seek damages now
By Justin Kmitch | Daily Herald StaffContact writerPublished: 2/2/2008 12:28 AMSend To:

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(0) | read | post With an Eola Road site secured for Metea Valley, Indian Prairie leaders appear ready to officially end their quest to build their new high school on the Brach-Brodie property in Aurora.

Unit District 204, which covers parts of Naperville, Aurora, Bolingbrook and Plainfield, owns 25 acres at 75th Street and Commons Drive. It originally wanted to buy an additional 55 acres to create an 80-acre campus for the proposed 3,000-student high school, but the district could never agree on a price with the property owners.

The district's attorneys on Monday are expected to appear before a judge and declare the district no longer wants to condemn the Brach-Brodie land.

During previous condemnation hearings, a jury decided the 55 acres in question are worth $31 million -- $17 million more than the district planned.

So, late last the month, the district switched direction and selected an 87-acre parcel along Eola Road south of Diehl Road to house the school. The new site will cost about $16.5 million.

Officials say the school is needed to ease overcrowding at Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie Valley high schools.

Indian Prairie attorney Rick Petesch said Friday he anticipates Monday's hearing will open the door for the property owners to respond and seek damages from the district for court costs and legal fees.

He hopes it also will begin the process of determining whether the property owners want to buy the 25 acres back from the district.

"We've asked them several times to tell us what, if anything, they intend to do with the property," Petesch said. "We hope those discussions can take place once we abandon our right to purchase the remaining 55 acres."

Steve Helm, the attorney representing the trust that owns the Brach-Brodie property, called Monday's court date a "trigger mechanism."

"If they are granted the motion to abandon, it would trigger our right to buy back the 25 acres," he said. "That would also be the appropriate time for us to make a claim for certain monetary damages resulting from attorney fees or any damage resulting from the condemnation actions."

Helm said he won't be surprised if the judge also advises the property owners to list their claims and attempt to settle with the district out of court.

"If that didn't work, we'd likely have another hearing to determine that," he said.

[Arch]

Watch your wallets on this one...

I wouldn't be astonished if we kept them from 'maximizing' profits by having the land all 'locked up'.

[casey]

Ok, just so I understand this correctly... Our crack legal team will be back in court on Monday at which time they will officially abandon the BB land. Then we will be slapped with a lawsuit from BB trying to force the jury price in addition to other legal costs (damages, attorneys, etc.). We'll be forced to continue to fight against BB and therefore just incur higher legal costs? We'll end up giving them back the 25 acres of land (that they supposedly don't want) and that still won't cover our legal costs.

What in the world will all of our BB walk-away costs truly end up being? Just to put the attorney fees in terms that can be understood, my neighbor pointed out that his IPSD school tax portion of his property bill was $8,800. and that we have about 1000 homes in TG. Basically that means that all of last year's SD taxes from our neighborhood could cover the BB legal fees so far. How's that for a waste? We've lost 2 plus years and millions and millions of dollars and we end with sloppy leftovers on the HS site location. This is just so horribly wrong.

[rew]

That is why I beleive the site change was about more than $$$. The new site is $14.5M less than BB. But they are spending $3.1M more for construction, to build the school on the AME site (above the BB site cost)and they are paying $5M to BB attorneys and they are paying an additional $5M in hurry up costs.

So if we had started consrtuction last fall, BB was $1.1M more?!

And if you don't think they could have been building the school through the winter, just look behind Home Depot, that construction started last fall.

[d204mom]

casey said:

What in the world will all of our BB walk-away costs truly end up being?

The nice thing is we probably won't know until after we've closed on the new property. I believe Daeschner stated at the board meeting that he wanted to close on the properties in the next 30 days, so that's what - Feb 20 or so?

I don't think there's any way BB is going to start playing nice at this point and settle out of court on damages.

[proschool]

I don't think that BB has a real case for damage to the remainder because we condemned the exact piece of land that they tried to sell us voluntarily. Why would they offer to sell us those 80 acres if they knew it would damage the other half?

[d204mom]

They already convinced a jury once that it's worth 2.5M. Maybe they could do it again, maybe not.

They haven't even come to an agreement on attorney's fees. We definately owe them that.

[Arch]

proschool said:

I don't think that BB has a real case for damage to the remainder because we condemned the exact piece of land that they tried to sell us voluntarily. Why would they offer to sell us those 80 acres if they knew it would damage the other half?

Now, it's not about damage to the remainder (IMO). It's about damage to their ability to have (allegedly) sold the land to someone else after we left it tied up in a condemnation suit. It's also about how much their 'fees' are to have fought the suit that long and that hard.

[rew]

I thought the BB attorneys want to argue that they sold PREIT the land at a discount because of the HS. They claimed they took less money because of quotes from the SB etc that assured them that they would be putting the HS there. So the damage to the remainder was built into the price that they took.

MM: (referring to the price the jury would set)"Even if it's the worst case scenario, we can afford it , so it doesn't matter"

[d204mom]

rew said:

That is why I beleive the site change was about more than $$$.

Agreed.

[Arch]

rew said:

I thought the BB attorneys want to argue that they sold PREIT the land at a discount because of the HS. They claimed they took less money because of quotes from the SB etc that assured them that they would be putting the HS there. So the damage to the remainder was built into the price that they took.

MM: (referring to the price the jury would set)"Even if it's the worst case scenario, we can afford it , so it doesn't matter"

Oy, ok, so add that to the inability to sell the other land we condemned and tied up for so long. Boy, this will be cheap.

[proschool]

archwinsome said:

rew said:

I thought the BB attorneys want to argue that they sold PREIT the land at a discount because of the HS. They claimed they took less money because of quotes from the SB etc that assured them that they would be putting the HS there. So the damage to the remainder was built into the price that they took.

MM: (referring to the price the jury would set)"Even if it's the worst case scenario, we can afford it , so it doesn't matter"

Oy, ok, so add that to the inability to sell the other land we condemned and tied up for so long. Boy, this will be cheap.

BB always had the right to sell the land at any point to whomever was willing to buy it. You can say so what who would want to but it when it's being condemned but IMO it does not matter.

The ability to buy and sell your property can be enhanced or reduced by government action, but as long as it is something that the government is allowed to do I don't see how the government could be penalized for that. If anything the BB property was enhanced overall by the government developing the school district, Route 59, 75th street, Aurora city structure emergency response etc. As property owner BB cannot just pull out this one action that interfered with its ability to get top dollar for a two year period and claim foul.

BB makes the claim that the value to the remainder of the property was diminished because of lack of access to the light at Commons Drive and the fact that there was a strip of land that was too far from Route 59and too thin to develop otherwise. I don't know if it was bought up in court that we condemned the exact same parcel that BB wanted to sell us voluntarily in 2005. Why would BB partition that property in that way if it really damaged the remainder.

[Arch]

I hold 0 hope that this will be cheap.

I stand by my earlier assertion that it would have been cheaper to just pay the darn $$ back in Oct and start construction.

We'll have to wait and see how accurately they budgeted this one. Going by their prior 'price guesses' this is why I have 0 hope.

[slp]

I agree...the change of site is not so much about money as they make it sound.

What ever happened with the request for a meeting by the Brach attorneys; this request
was reported in the Sun a few weeks ago. The Brach attorney suggested a meeting with the districts' attorneys and the judge...

I want to know if a representative from the district and our attorneys agreed to meet and if so what was the tone?

I find it hard to believe that in today's real estate marketplace that the BB attorneys would not negotiate in good faith now that legal proceedings are behind them.

I fear that egos may have gotten in the way of good negotiations. WHO else is going to buy that land now? It is not Prime space, it is not on Rt. 59 as many falsely state..

A good negotiation team should have made the BB deal work and this whole mess would be behind us. Very disappointing from a business standpoint.

[proschool]

Once those 55 acres are surrrounded can we get the city of Aurora to annex it so that we can at least tax it for what its worth?