Post by starfish on Apr 14, 2008 23:52:57 GMT -6
Naperville Sun
D204, church reach $19M land deal for Metea
April 14, 2008
By Tim Waldorf twaldorf@scn1.com
The deal is done.
Indian Prairie School District 204’s school board approved Monday the purchase of 84 acres along Eola Road in Aurora from St. John’s African Methodist Episcopal Church for the construction of Metea Valley High School. The purchase should allow District 204 to open the 3,000-seat high school in the fall of 2009, as planned.
"I want to personally thank the Rev. Jesse Hawkins, pastor of St. John’s, for his leadership in this endeavor, especially with his willingness to sell all 84 acres, and with the support of his trustees and congregation,” said Superintendent Stephen Daeschner as he introduced the measure. “This would not have happened without these great people. He is doing this on faith that they will find appropriate land to build their great church.”
St. John’s intended to build a new church on roughly 34 acres of the property, but decided to sell the entire 84-acre site to the district after Midwest Generation decided last week not to sell 37 acres of adjoining property selected for the school site. District 204 will purchase the property for roughly $19 million.
The board voted 6-1 in favor of the purchase. Board member Christine Vickers cast the lone dissenting vote.
Vickers cited the failure of enrollment projections to pan out, and the fact that the district had not secured an appraisal of the property as two of the reasons for her vote.
Vickers’ colleagues took issue with her rationale. They reinforced their beliefs that continued enrollment growth waits ahead, and they stressed that, while time didn’t allow for an appraisal, their extensive study of the area’s real estate market led them to believe the price was appropriate.
“We’re no strangers to the real estate market,” board member Curt Bradshaw said. “We’ve been working in it a great deal as part of the Brach-Brodie case.”
Depending on the outcome of outstanding legal issues, the site is estimated to cost between $9.5 million and $12 million less than the 80-acre Brach-Brodie property originally selected as the school site, but abandoned after an attempt to condemn it returned a price twice what the district anticipated.
Residents overflowed the board room for the meeting. Some had to watch on a closed-circuit broadcast from another room. Of the 200-plus in attendance, 26 addressed the board, and most of them urged the board to slow down, saying the district should wait until the courts determine damages the district will owe as a result of its decision to abandon its Brach-Brodie condemnation effort.
The board did not.
"I embrace that concept 100 percent, but, in reality, the world does not pause with us,” Bradshaw said. “In reality, if we wait for these lawsuits to be settled, we may be one, two years, or more than that down the road. And the reality beyond that is that inflation costs for construction do not pause with us, and each year we delay, we need another $5 million to $10 million on top of that for construction costs.”
Nor will students wait, board President Mark Metzger said.
“At the moment we literally have hundreds more middle school students than we have space for, and that will soon be thousands more middle school students than we have space for,” he said. “As those students move up in age, we will eventually be in a position where we will have 1,000 or 1,500 of 1,800 more high school students than we have room for at 100 percent capacity.
“These problems don’t go away,” he continued. “Slowing down serves every one of those children an enormous disservice, and I believe it would be a grave error for us to stop now."
But this vote will not stop opposition to the district’s plans, either.
In response to the decision to purchase the property, Neighborhood Schools for Our Children, which has filed a lawsuit demanding that the district build Metea on the Brach-Brodie property, continued to express its disappointment with the direction the board has chosen.
“The thing that becomes more clear to us tonight is that this situation has become more complicated, not less,” reads a statement NSFOC member Jasmine Grassi distributed to the media following the vote. “This school board has become more secretive, not less. This community has become more divided, not less.”
D204, church reach $19M land deal for Metea
April 14, 2008
By Tim Waldorf twaldorf@scn1.com
The deal is done.
Indian Prairie School District 204’s school board approved Monday the purchase of 84 acres along Eola Road in Aurora from St. John’s African Methodist Episcopal Church for the construction of Metea Valley High School. The purchase should allow District 204 to open the 3,000-seat high school in the fall of 2009, as planned.
"I want to personally thank the Rev. Jesse Hawkins, pastor of St. John’s, for his leadership in this endeavor, especially with his willingness to sell all 84 acres, and with the support of his trustees and congregation,” said Superintendent Stephen Daeschner as he introduced the measure. “This would not have happened without these great people. He is doing this on faith that they will find appropriate land to build their great church.”
St. John’s intended to build a new church on roughly 34 acres of the property, but decided to sell the entire 84-acre site to the district after Midwest Generation decided last week not to sell 37 acres of adjoining property selected for the school site. District 204 will purchase the property for roughly $19 million.
The board voted 6-1 in favor of the purchase. Board member Christine Vickers cast the lone dissenting vote.
Vickers cited the failure of enrollment projections to pan out, and the fact that the district had not secured an appraisal of the property as two of the reasons for her vote.
Vickers’ colleagues took issue with her rationale. They reinforced their beliefs that continued enrollment growth waits ahead, and they stressed that, while time didn’t allow for an appraisal, their extensive study of the area’s real estate market led them to believe the price was appropriate.
“We’re no strangers to the real estate market,” board member Curt Bradshaw said. “We’ve been working in it a great deal as part of the Brach-Brodie case.”
Depending on the outcome of outstanding legal issues, the site is estimated to cost between $9.5 million and $12 million less than the 80-acre Brach-Brodie property originally selected as the school site, but abandoned after an attempt to condemn it returned a price twice what the district anticipated.
Residents overflowed the board room for the meeting. Some had to watch on a closed-circuit broadcast from another room. Of the 200-plus in attendance, 26 addressed the board, and most of them urged the board to slow down, saying the district should wait until the courts determine damages the district will owe as a result of its decision to abandon its Brach-Brodie condemnation effort.
The board did not.
"I embrace that concept 100 percent, but, in reality, the world does not pause with us,” Bradshaw said. “In reality, if we wait for these lawsuits to be settled, we may be one, two years, or more than that down the road. And the reality beyond that is that inflation costs for construction do not pause with us, and each year we delay, we need another $5 million to $10 million on top of that for construction costs.”
Nor will students wait, board President Mark Metzger said.
“At the moment we literally have hundreds more middle school students than we have space for, and that will soon be thousands more middle school students than we have space for,” he said. “As those students move up in age, we will eventually be in a position where we will have 1,000 or 1,500 of 1,800 more high school students than we have room for at 100 percent capacity.
“These problems don’t go away,” he continued. “Slowing down serves every one of those children an enormous disservice, and I believe it would be a grave error for us to stop now."
But this vote will not stop opposition to the district’s plans, either.
In response to the decision to purchase the property, Neighborhood Schools for Our Children, which has filed a lawsuit demanding that the district build Metea on the Brach-Brodie property, continued to express its disappointment with the direction the board has chosen.
“The thing that becomes more clear to us tonight is that this situation has become more complicated, not less,” reads a statement NSFOC member Jasmine Grassi distributed to the media following the vote. “This school board has become more secretive, not less. This community has become more divided, not less.”
