Land deal for Christopher High School finalized
– price tag $20 million
Gilroy – The school district is poised to fork over $20 million in a deal for a 42.6-acre parcel of land at the future site of Christopher High School.
The tentative agreement would wrap negotiations between the Gilroy Unified School District and the Sylveria family, who owns the land where the school will be built near Day Road and Santa Teresa Boulevard. Negotiations have dragged out for nearly a year.
“It’s high, but it’s the best price we could get,” said Trustee Denise Apuzzo.
When the district first outlined plans for the school, it budgeted the price of the parcel at $6 million. After contact with a representative for the Sylveria family in 2006, the district revised this estimate to more than $19 million. The $20 million-agreement now under consideration is $770,000 higher than the second estimate.
The proposed deal, which has yet to go before the district board of trustees for approval, marks another episode in which the GUSD paid significantly more for land than it had expected.
The district made a similar mistake when it sold off a plot of land to the Glen Loma Corporation in 2002 for about $3 million and then – because Glen Loma’s plans included so many homes that an additional school was needed – had to pay $10.8 million to Glen Loma for the same plot of land. This settlement, however, came only after the two parties almost went to trial to decide the price of the land.
The Glen Loma issue and rising prices for construction, among other expenses, has pushed the district’s facilities budget deficit to $12 million.
The deficit includes the $19 million estimate for the high school parcel, but the actual price of $20 million will push the deficit to about $13 million.
“Obviously, (the deal) puts additional financial strain on the district,” said Trustee Francisco Dominguez.
The additional strain was unavoidable, Apuzzo said.
“If we could have gotten a lower (price), believe me we would have,” she said.
The agreement will likely be presented to trustees in a closed session at their March 29 regular meeting, said Steve Brinkman, assistant principal of business services and a key player in the negotiations.
With the land deal in progress, the high school inches closer to meeting the expected completion date of 2009. Major steps remaining include determining whether the city will share the use and costs of a gymnasium and bidding out the construction to contractors.
Even as the project moves forward, the district will be dealing with the effects of the additional $1 million that the land parcel cost as it addresses the larger budgetary concerns at a workshop preceding the March 29 meeting.
The workshop will be a forum where trustees can suggest ways the district can make cuts in its facilities budget, such as by utilizing cheaper construction materials or forgoing smaller upkeep projects.
The process of closing the budget gap will be a key step in moving forward with the high school and other district priorities, said Dominguez.
“We now need to find additional financial revenue,” he said.
