Dist. 204 accepting bids for 25 acres at Route 59 and 75th St.
The vacant land at the southwest corner of Route 59 and 75th Street never did become a school in Indian Prairie Unit District 204, so the district is selling the property.
The school board voted unanimously to sell the land by accepting sealed bids to be opened Jan. 5. Board members set a minimum price of $6.1 million for the 25-acre property their predecessors bought for $6.4 million from two heiresses to the Brach candy fortune in 2005.
"The property at one point in the district's plans was going to be developed into a middle school and at another point in the district's plans was going to be developed into our third high school, Metea Valley High School," said Jay Strang, chief school business official. "Those plans for schools on that property are no longer in the district's future."
The Aurora land is along the busy Route 59 commercial corridor and near bustling big-box stores such as Costco, Dick's Sporting Goods, Home Depot, Lowe's and Wal-Mart. So Strang said the district already has heard from developers interested in buying it. The district priced the land at the current appraised value.
When District 204 bought the land 11 years ago, the area was rapidly growing. The idea was either to build a middle school there, or to buy an adjacent 55 acres to amass an 80-acre site big enough for a high school.
Those plans fell through in September 2007. In legal proceedings the district was using to try to buy the extra acres, a jury set the price at $31 million - $17 million more than the district had anticipated. So the district abandoned the pursuit.
Meanwhile, officials bought 84 acres from St. John AME Church and built Metea at 1801 N. Eola Road, just south of Diehl Road.
Then in 2010, the district tried to sell the original 25 acres at Route 59 and 75th Street and recoup the money it had spent on the land five years earlier. But officials at the time acknowledged the economy had not yet recovered from the "Great Recession."
Now officials said the time is right to make another attempt at selling the land because the district "no longer has a useful purpose" for it.