SUSD to look at other sites, mulls Park’s $1 million offer

The school district’s plan to condemn Park Corp. property has been temporarily halted after Park offered to donate $1 million toward development on another site and suggested the district look into 18 other vacant properties in the district.

Kelly Park, president of Park Company of Arizona, an affiliate of Park Corp., told the school Governing Board “our offer still stands that if the school district acquires an alternate site which does not interfere with our development plans, the Park Company of Arizona Inc., would donate $1 million to the school district to be used toward the purchase or improvement of such alternate site.”

Park officials also gave the school district aerial photographs with the vacant properties marked.

Most of the properties are owned by other entities than Park, and many appear to be Farmers Investment Co. land.

One, for example, was the Sahuarita Park property that school officials already had investigated, and which lacks potable water and would require a mile of expanded road access.

Park officials said they had no idea whether the properties are available for sale or whether they are served by roads, utilities, water or sewer, and noted that the land sought by the school district on La Canada Drive for a high school was not listed for sale.

Park told the Governing Board on Dec. 5 that the company has received an unsolicited offer of $278,784 an acre for 50 acres at La Canada Drive near Anamax Mine Road, far above the $25,000 per acre that the state has authorized for a second high school site there.

The school board discussed the matter in executive session.

Superintendent Jay St. John said on Thursday he was planning to meet with Park officials that day to discuss the $1 million offer and the list of other sites.

The Governing Board already has authorized a condemnation proceeding, which could be started at any time, St. John said.

The day after the Governing Board meeting, the superintendent said “at this point it is not going to happen,” without giving a timeline on when he must make a decision.

“The million-dollar donation (offer) made us all stop and pause for moment,” St. John said, but he added “it means nothing” if the district has to spend several million on roads or utilities to develop an alternate site.

In the past, St. John has told the board there are no other sites in the district as suitable for development as the Park land on La Canada Drive, which already has road access and sewer, water, and electric power. The state does not pay for road or utility access to remote sites.

However, St. John in the past week noted that Las Quintas Serenas Water Co. lacks enough water pressure to serve a high school at the La Canada site, and said there are three federally regulated washes on the property.

Solutions to the water issue could include persuading the owner of Las Quintas Serenas, mining giant Freeport McMoRan, to invest in a bigger system for its 1,500 water customers, or asking the Arizona Corporation Commission to switch the site to another water company, perhaps Community Water Company of Green Valley.

The latter has sufficient pressure to serve a school at the site, but would have to pay to extend water lines.

To solve the issue with the washes, the district might be able to obtain a waiver from the Army Corps of Engineers or it might be able to design a campus around the washes, as it did with the Anza Trail School, at considerable expense, St. John said.

Under condemnation, the district would get the land within about three months and a Superior Court process would decide the land value. The state School Facilities Board would pay the bill.

The district needs 40 acres to build a second high school and eventually will need another 25 acres for an elementary school.

School officials this fall approached Park about the 66-acre site on La Canada Drive. However, the amount authorized by the SFB, at $25,000 an acre, would be $18 million less than what Park says would be “just compensation.”

Park, which has a national reputation for rehabilitating distressed properties—including former industrial land and inner-city sites in the Rust Belt—is planning to submit to the town of Sahuarita a Specific Plan for development of a 380-acre tract of former mine land on both sides of La Canada Drive, including the proposed 66-acre school property.

pfranchine@sahuaritasun.com | 547-9738