Gilroy
– The school district this week came one step closer to selling
a property on its list of real estate holdings and will use the
proceeds to finance its ever-expanding facilities.
Gilroy – The school district this week came one step closer to selling a property on its list of real estate holdings and will use the proceeds to finance its ever-expanding facilities.
City Council this week signed off on a request by the Gilroy Unified School District to rezone a six-acre property next to Antonio Del Buono Elementary School. By Friday, school officials had sent out requests for bids on nine separate residential lots, located at the corner of Vickery and Wren avenues. The minimum asking price of $185,000 per lot means the district stands to make at least $1.6 million. In addition to written bids, the school district will hold a public hearing June 23 where oral bids can be made. They must be 5 percent greater than the highest sealed bid, according to Stephen Brinkman, GUSD’s assistant superintendent of administrative services.
He said the Del Buono sale is one of several real estate projects the school district will shepherd through the city’s zoning process in coming years.
“All we’re trying to do really is maximize our revenue,” Brinkman said. “We’re not going to get into the development business and build houses, but we will get the land in a state so that we can get the maximum value for the land when we sell it.”
Including Del Buono, the school district’s list of real estate holdings is about 40 acres and includes:
• 5.3 acres on Kern Avenue, now used as the school farm
• 12 acres in the future area of Glen Loma Ranch, in the southwest quadrant
• 2 acres of softball fields at Brownell Academy that border First and Carmel streets
• Las Animas Elementary School, which will be sold for development once a new elementary school is built in the southwest quadrant
While every property requires a new zoning designation to allow for development, each property presents a unique set of challenges before it can be sold.
The Kern Avenue site, for instance, will require the school district to annex the land, a long process that involves working with a regional land authority.
The 12-acre parcel in Glen Loma Ranch, donated to the school district by the Christopher family, will require the district to buy adjacent property and work with one or more developers as part of a broader planning effort. The Glen Loma project is expected to bring roughly 1,700 new homes to the city’s southwest quadrant and has taken more than five years of planning. The school district expects to work closely with city officials and developers to ensure that zoning changes to the property fit into plans for the area.
The two acres at the north end of Brownell Academy present the fewest challenges from a planning perspective. Brinkman said officials hope to rezone the strip of land along First Street to allow retail stores and housing.
“You take it through the process to get it some form of entitlement, something that would enable this particular site to be used either for residential or commercial purposes so that one can sell it for the highest possible value and let the experts develop it,” Brinkman said.
Proceeds from such sales will finance new school and other facilities needs. The district has already started the process of eminent domain to seize land north of Day Road for a new high school, and also is using its legal authority to claim 10 acres in the Glen Loma project area.
While the district does not speculate on land, it has not overlooked the value of a good investment.
“The property that is located next to Del Buono, when that application was made, there was the thinking that not all the land would be needed for the school site and could be used as a revenue source in the future,” explained Jane Howard, chair of GUSD’s surplus land committee.
The school district owns more than 200 acres of land throughout the area, almost all of it actively used for schools and related facilities. Howard said the district’s recent list of sales include an elementary school off Pacheco Pass just past Gilroy Foods, which netted the district $400,000.
Brinkman said Gilroy is not alone in reaping the benefits of a hot real estate market.
“Basically school districts for a variety of reasons end up with land,” Brinkman said. “Some of it is donated, some of it they buy and it ends up excess. They’re taking their assets and trying to convert it into more assets.”
