SB Options for BB now

[gatordog]

wvhsparent said:

casey said:

I don't honestly see how St. John's could be considered a better site. I'm not saying that Macom is the answer but St. John's has several things going against it:

1) Very far North location - School is not located where the big percentage of growth is - south side
2) Busy traffic area (soon to be worse with Ferry Road entrance ramp to 88 to be added). Maybe seen as more dangerous?
3) Need to condemn the land - we know how that went over last time. Takes more time to get building?
4) Cost still to be determined?

1) Get out of the "where the growth is" mentality. There are enought students i the northern part to support a school...why does have to be "new growth"?
2) The ramp may actually relieve some of the congestion. Might actually help those of us who need to try and use Eola to get to WVHS now (which is terrible)
3) Who said we need to condemn? I would agree that is not a good thing with church property, built or not. How about serious negotiating?
4) cost TBD....yep....less than BB? most definitely...remember they got it for 6 mil...offer them 15 up to 20.....nice chunk o change and after selling back of 25 acres to BB minus fees, we would still be less than what they were originally trying to get BB for...more for the building then.

wvhsparent,
I agree with all 1,3,4. You may be right for 2, but i am skeptical. I think your item 2 is what regional traffic officials, including city of aurora claim. 4 has big if....that church says yes.

wvhsparent, do you how big the St Johns AME lot is? My ruler calcs from the assessor image (hard to read) approximated 1750 ft x 3000 ft, or 120 acres. This seems to big! Especially if they paid only $6 mil.

Is this land big enough for HS and church? If church can turn their real estate investment into capital to build the church at their very site....boy, that sounds ideal for them.

[doctorwho]

wvhsparent said:

gatordog said:

If only it were easy...maybe the church would jump! However...

Bonk farm: is south of 111th street, in Bolingbrook. I am not sure if church wants to go THAT far south....you'd have to hear from them. Given that they are holding services at Granger MS....I am doubtful that they would see that as a better piece of land than what they have (just my hunch)

Ferry and 59: is slightly N of churches current site and is zoned commericial. Commericial property close to tollway may be expensive.

The and 75th and Book land behind Home Depot: Seems plausible option for St Johns. One thing I can say with confidence: the owners of this land must have been really happy with BB jury verdict!

SW corner of Rt59 and Ferry....Parcel # 07-03-102-007 has been open and vacant for a loooong time.......Currently zoned farmland.

What was the site that was right next to NVHS? I thought that was Bonk Farm.

Bummer about the site near the Home Depot. But also remember they could look outside the district for land too.

I personally have never been able to really come up with any reason the BB is a good site. Pre or Post verdict......sorry.

all one has to do is look at the litany of physical issues with all the other sites - and that alone should be a start.

[Arch]

RE: "Is this land big enough for HS and church? If church can turn their real estate investment into capital to build the church at their very site....boy, that sounds ideal for them"


Share the parking too so they can have more devoted to structure.

There's no school on Sunday.

[wvhsparent]

I think it's only 85 Acres, but there is another parcel next to it that is about 25+ acres. I tried that suggestion before...How about the Church and school co-existing on the parcel. and the trying to get the additional parcel for more parking.
I am not sure, but I thought some said that St. Johns was considering a school of some sort too.....SSM...do you know anything about that?

[rew]

My problem with St john's is that 70% of the current student population is south of Ogden.

If you build a far north location, you have improved commutes for Brooks, Brookdale and Longwood and you have worsened commutes for Watts, and Cowlishaw and you have worsened commutes for all the south schools which have to be pulled to WVHS.

I am not saying it is not doable, but I do think BB significantly lessened the commute for Cow, Watts and Owen and kept everyone else about the same.

Again, if it has to be St John's, it has to be, but to say it is more desirable location-wise is a stretch IMHO.

[momto4]

wvhsparent said:

I think it's only 85 Acres, but there is another parcel next to it that is about 25+ acres. I tried that suggestion before...How about the Church and school co-existing on the parcel. and the trying to get the additional parcel for more parking.
I am not sure, but I thought some said that St. Johns was considering a school of some sort too.....SSM...do you know anything about that?

Not SSM, but I know that when they bought the land it was publicized that there would be both a church and school.

I bet there are a number of times that both a church and school would be in use at the same time but they still may be able to share a lot. Our high schools have events going on almost every evening and weekend, and most large churches have lots going on during the day, evening, and of course weekends as well.

[wvhsparent]

rew said:

My problem with St john's is that 70% of the current student population is south of Ogden.

If you build a far north location, you have improved commutes for Brooks, Brookdale and Longwood and you have worsened commutes for Watts, and Cowlishaw and you have worsened commutes for all the south schools which have to be pulled to WVHS.

I am not saying it is not doable, but I do think BB significantly lessened the commute for Cow, Watts and Owen and kept everyone else about the same.

Again, if it has to be St John's, it has to be, but to say it is more desirable location-wise is a stretch IMHO.

And I am in that 30% that is north of Ogden.

Let's see - assuming the 10,000 student mark.. I like round numbers

3000 to MVHS 30%
3000 to WVHS 30%
4000 to NVHS 40%

Looks good to me

[gatordog]

Not just parking....the church may have special weekend events on occasion where a nice HS auditorium would be a great resource. Maybe give them rent free access for some number of weekend dates per year?

Not thinking in detail on boundaries...I have in general wondered if three schools with predominately E-W drives would be better than those with N-S drives. North of Wolfs crossing/'95th, congested eola and 59 are about only choices.

[casey]

wvhsparent said:

1) Get out of the "where the growth is" mentality. There are enought students i the northern part to support a school...why does have to be "new growth"?
2) The ramp may actually relieve some of the congestion. Might actually help those of us who need to try and use Eola to get to WVHS now (which is terrible)
3) Who said we need to condemn? I would agree that is not a good thing with church property, built or not. How about serious negotiating?
4) cost TBD....yep....less than BB? most definitely...remember they got it for 6 mil...offer them 15 up to 20.....nice chunk o change and after selling back of 25 acres to BB minus fees, we would still be less than what they were originally trying to get BB for...more for the building then.

Gosh WVHSParent, I was simply stating why I don't think that St.J is a good site and I still don't.

I think I remember the SB mentioning something about over 60% of the school population is south of 75th and over 50% is south of 95th (maybe my numbers are off some but I do remember it being a considerable amount being south). Therefore, I was taking into account transportation/travel factors of heading to a way-north location. I agree with you though that it doesn't matter whether it's "new growth" or not - I didn't mean to imply that!

The conditions on Eola Road are terrible and I just don't know how they would improve. If anything, I'd think they'd get worse with a new ramp exit. I can't imagine what a new HS including buses would do to Eola Road especially heading up towards 88.

You're right, no one knows if St. J's would be willing to sell and maybe there could be some kind of land swap. Based on most comments that I've read here (and that doesn't make it gospel), they don't sound like they want to sell to the SD. I just don't think it sounds like it would be a quick process.

You are right about one thing though and that's the land cost would be considerably less than BB. Bottom-line though is we wouldn't know what that cost would be and would we really want to go down that road again?

[wvhsparent]

casey,
I respect your opinion on why you don't like the site.
As long as you respect mine on BB and St John's........


I am willing to take a chance on St. John's knowing that it would be less than BB.

[rew]

I am interested in knowing the definition of people's "less". What would be a land price that some of you would consider to be "less" enough to pull the trigger on BB.....

1M? 5M? 10M? less than BB, ... or within the original budgeted land amount of $14M??

[wvhsparent]

I'd be OK with $1.00 less

But I would prefer it to be within the original amount, maybe just a little more, but no more than say 20million.

[Arch]

I'm sure the whole Church and Public school intermingling would go over great too

We'll see.

[bob]

wvhsparent said:

I'd be OK with $1.00 less

But I would prefer it to be within the original amount, maybe just a little more, but no more than say 20million.

That's 250k an acre.

We are going to need 80 acres. Macom was only 65 because they were kicking in the retention ponds.

[wvhsparent]

bob said:

wvhsparent said:

I'd be OK with $1.00 less

But I would prefer it to be within the original amount, maybe just a little more, but no more than say 20million.

That's 250k an acre.

We are going to need 80 acres. Macom was only 65 because they were kicking in the retention ponds.

Sorry I was thinking "net" after selling back the 25 BB acres we already have.
Let's say we offered the Church 300k/acre (They paid about 73k/acre for it). Thats 22.4 mil - 5 mil from the return of the 25 acres to BB minus the fees, = 17.4 mil.