More Top Picks Black Friday Cyber Monday Health Equipment Deals
player ready...The West Aurora School Board Monday night unanimously authorized the superintendent to negotiate an agreement for the purchase of industrial buildings on Morton Avenue and New Haven Avenue northwest of downtown Aurora as a possible site for a new maintenance and storage facility for the school district.
The purchase authorization by the board for the properties is for an amount not to exceed $2.1 million.
As part of a look ahead to possible projects in the district over the next three years, a potential siting of the maintenance and storage facility along Deerpath Road near Herget Middle School was discussed. That possibility has been ended with the move to purchase the new properties, district officials said.
The properties the district is looking to buy are at 729, 735, 745 and 749 Morton Ave. and 750 New Haven Ave. As part of the motion OK’d by the board, real estate agreements will be presented to the board for a vote once the sale has been negotiated.
“It was obvious as the properties were made available to us on or around Oct. 29 we were able to move expeditiously … that is centrally located and centralizing all of our resources,” West Aurora School District Superintendent Jeff Craig said of the new site.
“We have been looking over the past several years to find suitable opportunities not only to have a centralized (site) in terms of our geographical location but also centralized being able to bring projects and supplies in one singular space. We have looked at a variety of properties,” he said.
Craig said the district is in the process of reviewing contingency costs for upgrades to the proposed Morton Avenue and New Haven site. The site would allow the district to expand its salt storage capacity and reduce the number of deliveries, officials said.
The district is looking at a proposed $700,000 in improvements at the site for a total cost of $2.8 million for the project, Craig said of the plan.
“When we do a comparison with the Deerpath property (proposal’s cost) of $4.3 million and our new opportunities that have been brought to us for $2.8 million, it is with a savings of roughly $1.5 million,” Craig said.
“We chose the Deerpath property (to examine) because we already owned the property. We own all 13.5 acres. The district didn’t have to contend with the investment in the property. That’s why we developed a preliminary plan for that site along the Deerpath Road property. What was ironic on or around Oct. 29, property on Morton Avenue was brought to our attention that checked most of our boxes,” Craig said.
The industrial site along Morton Avenue offers the advantage of having sufficient inventory space, shop space and indoor parking to extend the life of the district’s vehicles, he said about placing the maintenance and storage facility there.
As for the 13.5 acres at the Deerpath property, “we know anytime there is a large event at Herget, overflow parking tends to end up on Deerpath Road. We are looking to bring extra parking spaces on the property and because there is such a high need in the springtime for track, we would construct a middle school track on that space as well. Both are estimated at roughly $600,000 for the parking expansion and track,” he said of possible future work at the site.
“The other piece is the track and parking do not consume all 13.5 acres” so the district would have the option “to sell the remaining property at market value.”
Craig defended the district’s process in planning for new projects.
“We have executed well over $120 million in projects over the past eight years and not a single one of them has been aesthetically or functionally off-putting. Every single one of our projects improved the site and immediate community around them,” Craig said.
The board’s unanimous vote on the Morton Avenue and New Haven Avenue properties Monday night will allow the district’s leadership to negotiate a purchase agreements for the land.
“The closing on these properties would end potentially before the end of our calendar year, providing appropriate transition time in and out of the various facilities,” Craig said during the meeting.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.