The Westfield Washington Schools Board rejected an offer to sell 14.1 acres of high-profile property at U.S. 31 and Ind. 32 during its meeting on June 11. The acreage includes the administration building, football/track stadium, junior varsity baseball field and practice fields.
“It’s a rare occurrence the school district has land to sell,” WWS Supt. Mark Keen said. “There are a lot of different options.”
The board unanimously approved to reject the offer and asked attorney Jack Hittle to take steps to put the property on the open market. A study committee consisting of school board members Duane Lutz and David Mueller will work closer with interested groups and report back to the board at the Sept. 11 meeting.
The school district accepted bids from March to mid-May but only received one offer from Westfield Community Land Investors. Before rejecting the offer, board members said they felt the property was worth more and had several questions about the bid that were not included in the offer.
“If we accepted this bid, we would be homeless,” school board president Tim D. Siefker said.
Per state law, the minimum bid the district can accept is $5.4 million, which is 90 percent of the property’s appraised value. Westfield Community Land Investors offered the appraised value of $6,029,500.
Randy Zentz of Westfield Community Land Investors said the rejected offer is not a negative.
“It’s a government process,” he said. “It opens the door to further discussion.”
Westfield Community Land Investors are a group of people with a strong Westfield connection, which means they either live here, work here, own property and pay taxes or have a child in Westfield Washington Schools. Zentz said the group is wanting to work with the district and city’s plans for Grand Junction to make the transition a win-win-win.
“We’re very aware of all the moving parts,” he said. “We believe this is a good opportunity in the future, but you do not know what the future will hold.”
While the land sale funds could be used to finish the community stadium, Keen has highlighted other areas to use the money.
“It is our hope that we will raise all the funds for the stadium and can use the money from the land sale to lower our debt and reduce the tax rate,” Keen said. “Additionally, the land sale would have further impact on the tax rate as the ground would move from being non-taxable to taxable.”
