The district is moving forward with the North Cassady Avenue land purchase following initial approval by the Board of Education Sept. 11 and entrance into a purchase agreement Sept. 16.
“I am happy to report that the Bexley City School District is officially purchasing land on North Cassady Avenue for a planned athletic venue and possible outdoor learning opportunities,” Superintendent Jason Fine said in a Dec. 5 email. “The purchase is expected to be completed this month.”
Director of Facilities Harley Williams said the district was scheduled to close the deal Thursday, Dec. 12.
Fine explained a great deal of consideration went into the decision, and the district consulted with civil engineers, representatives from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the City of Columbus.
“Based on all of the input we have received, we have concluded that the property will permit us to provide a safe environment for our students, staff and community,” Fine said in the email.
Director of K-12 facilities for Perkins & Will Steve Turckes provided information regarding the Cassady site during planned community engagement sessions Nov. 19 and 20 at the Bexley Public Library.
“It is roughly 28.5 acres,” he said. “There is about a quarter of an acre that is actually in the right-of-way, which is not available to be used by the district. If you take that out, the net area is about 28.235 acres.”
Nineteen of the acres have been identified as highly developable, and four are considered to be topographically challenging, Turckes said.
Turckes explained 10th Avenue runs diagonally across the eastern side of the Cassady land. Turckes presented two options for developing the site: one choice leaves 10th Avenue as it is, and one reroutes it further north. Rerouting the road is potentially impossible, and it would be more expensive, Turckes added.
“One of the biggest things on the site is about a 105,000 square foot building,” Turckes said.
The building was originally used for senior citizen housing and is mostly small rooms, nursing stations and common areas, Turckes explained.
The district currently has half of the $6 million necessary to purchase the land from the 2016 Permanent Improvement Levy, according to the district FAQ document.
At the Board meeting Oct. 9, the Board approved a resolution to request a maximum of $3.5 million in the form of a tax anticipation note, which will be used to purchase the Cassady land. Chief Financial Officer Kyle Smith explained the district’s permanent improvement funds will not be exhausted during this process.
“By law, we can only obligate 50% of PI revenues, so that leaves $350,000 per year that we can use for capital outlay expenditures,” he said. The land will create space to update other district facilities, Fine said.
“It allows us to free up space at the Cassingham complex, which impacts all students, because all students end up at the middle school and the high school,” he said.
Similarly, Williams explained the purchase was made with other facilities’ planning in mind.
“It’s important to remember that this isn’t just about athletics,” he said. “By freeing up land on the Cassingham Complex, we will have multiple options to fix our undersized and outdated classrooms, as well as provide modern learning experiences for all of our students. On the contrary, without such a venue that the Cassady land will offer, our options to address the needs of our three schools at the Cassingham Complex would be very few and limited.”
Fine said he is proud of the strategic planning process, as the district has been successful in their goal of keeping the community involved, which he said will continue as the project moves forward.
“We’re not looking for a fix just for today,” he said. “We have the opportunity to look at what we want to do now and what we want to do down the road.”
