What Deal would you take for Ashwood Park Land?

[Avenging Eagle]

Please vote.

Also, please comment on the subject.

OK, the generous Macom representative offered to sell his land to the SD at above market prices, and the SB turned it down, citing that there was not enough incentive for them to consider that option.

That tells me that they may be open to a deal if the terms were much, much better. I am glad they put it that way, as to keep the negotiations open with this "community-concerned" builder.

Assuming that the land would actually support the building requirements of the school, then there must be a good enough deal that could be made that we should take advantage of it, but what would that be?

Please post the specifics about the deal the SB should make to take the builder's land.

[Avenging Eagle]

Here is my answer:

1. <100k / acre or FREE. They will easily make the money back by selling their houses that currently won't sell because of their excuse that the boundary decision caused it (not the general market slowdown itself).
2. Macom donates $$$$ to WVHS for improvements for bashing them in the paper today. If they focused on removing the negative perception of WVHS which caused their buyers to back out of contracts, then they might not be so desparate to go with the "anything but WVHS" approach.
3. The SD puts up a little red schoolhouse (12 ft. X 12 ft.) on the BB property land, so that BB can't sell the rest of the property to a builder. The district uses this economics lesson in their curriculum concerning the value of real estate, and the ups and downs of the legal system. The students will decide how long to hold the land before selling at top dollar and driving the BB people crazy.

[bob]

There are too many unknowns with the Ashwood land especially with the power lines and the land underneath them.

At this time, I would say free until I get more info.

[wvhsparent]

As long as they throw in some improvement costs they should get something. I wonder how much he paid for the land? Otherwise just donate the land and write it off on taxes.

[warriorpride]

avengingeagle said:

Here is my answer:

1. <100k / acre or FREE. They will easily make the money back by selling their houses that currently won't sell because of their excuse that the boundary decision caused it (not the general market slowdown itself).
2. Macom donates $$$$ to WVHS for improvements for bashing them in the paper today. If they focused on removing the negative perception of WVHS which caused their buyers to back out of contracts, then they might not be so desparate to go with the "anything but WVHS" approach.
3. The SD puts up a little red schoolhouse (12 ft. X 12 ft.) on the BB property land, so that BB can't sell the rest of the property to a builder. The district uses this economics lesson in their curriculum concerning the value of real estate, and the ups and downs of the legal system. The students will decide how long to hold the land before selling at top dollar and driving the BB people crazy.

Brilliant!

[wvhsparent]

Take it and then swap St. Johns AME for their land up north.

[proschool]

If the commercail land (with frontage on Commons, Ogden and 75th steet) to the north of BB sold for $287,000/acre then there is no way that this is worth $257,000 per acre.

I say its worth $140,000/acre.

[proschool]

Today's Naperville Sun says that the offer was to sell at $334,000 per acre.

Some of the land had already been donated to the park district and the developer is hoping that he can get his donated land back so that he can sell it to the school district for more money than it's worth. Sounds like a sweet deal for the developer.

Why is such a surprize that a landowner would be willing to sell land for two to three times its worth?

[EagleDad]

I don't know if I want to deal with a developer who would so readily renig on a donation to the park district to make a few bucks. What's to say he wouldn't get the SD to shift focus from BB and then pull the same trick?

[Arch]

If he hasn't taken care of making the land suitable to build on with the footprint already put there, no one should be wasting their time on him.

Just because he rang the phone doesn't mean the SB is obligated to answer it.

[Avenging Eagle]

In addition ED's reason listed above, based upon the fact that he initially offered the land at such a high price, and he doesn't even have all the land involved, I reiterate to this deceptive developer.

"FREE or FORGET IT"

[warriorpride]

Some Points to Consider:


- From the Sun on 1/12
…
Macom produced a brochure touting Waubonsie as a high school with "Extraordinary Opportunities," however, Lehman said his home sales have dropped since the district announced Ashwood students would attend Waubonsie instead of Neuqua Valley.

- From the Herald on 1/11
…
Lehman admits the plan is somewhat self-serving. Housing sales have fallen since board members assigned students in the Ashwood subdivisions to attend Waubonsie Valley High School, he said.

“Problems with the high schools affect us being able to sell houses, period,” Lehman said. “The second it (the subdivision) moved to Waubonsie Valley, everybody disappeared. Contracts were canceled, etc.”

- Despite his nice shiny "brochure touting Waubonsie", he still has NV on his site: www.ashwoodpark.com/Schools.asp

- He clearly decided to make this public in order to gather public support to put pressure on the SB.

- There seem to be plent of "small" details about who owns how much of this land, how suitable it really is for an HS (for example, this is near the train tracks, isn't it?), how much the true cost would be, etc.

Given that it's is clearly a BIG win for him, and AT BEST a small win (this even remains to be seen) for the SD, it'd have to be free.

By posting this guys whining about how WV is ruining his business (and implying that it is inferior), the papers are doing us no favors towards promoting harmony and equality in our district. By doing business with this guy, the SD would not be sending a very good message about WV, and they have to know it - this has to be a consideration - there's not a tangible cost that anyone can put on it, but it could easily undo some of things that have been done recently.

[Avenging Eagle]

warriorpride said:

By doing business with this guy, the SD would not be sending a very good message about WV, and they have to know it - this has to be a consideration - there's not a tangible cost that anyone can put on it, but it could easily undo some of things that have been done recently.

By turning him down strongly, they are showing that they will not fall for this type of monkey business.

This is actually part of the SD's master plan, which consists of:

1. Winning the referendum.
2. Deferring the purchase of the rest of the land, until the market bottoms this summer and they get the best deal.
3. In the months between these 2 events, allow no-goodniks to attempt ill fated schemes to trick the SD. The SD then successfully exposes those companies and individuals.
4. Build the school, just-in-time with the latest cutting edge technology that was not even available in the previous year anyway.

[proschool]

If macom wants to sell they should:

Bring a feasability study to the table with the offer to sell the land.

No land under power lines or near power stations. They have enough land.

Do not offer us land that they already promised to the park district.

Come in with a resonable price (less than 200K per acre).

Offer to buy the 25 acres that the district already owns at BB for what the BB estate will be entitled to buy it back. If BB exercises its option then they will be free of having to buy it. If the BB estate does not exercise its option then macom gets the 25 acres for 1/2 of what they said they believe it is worth.

Be willing to play second fiddle. If they really want this to happen thenthey should be willing to have the offer ready to go if the BB acquisition goes bad.

[warriorpride]

Thinking about it some more, here's some more concessions I'd like to see:

- Ashwood Park gets renamed to Waubonsie Park
- The 3rd HS gets renamed to Waubonsie Valley Central