It’s just a formality, but the District 150 school board is slated to approve the purchase of eight properties on N. Prospect totalling $877,500 at Monday’s board meeting. The contracts are already signed, the money spent, but this action will just make it legal.
Here are the properties the district has purchased, along with their fair market value according to the Peoria County website (based on their assessed value):
| Address | Sales Price | 2005 FMV | Tax ID # |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2102 N. Prospect | $140,000 | $114,360 | 1434378004 |
| 2126 N. Prospect | $98,000 | $60,150 | 1434332012 |
| 2138 N. Prospect | $82,000 | $54,780 | 1434332009 |
| 2142 N. Prospect | $90,000 | $56,280 | 1434332008 |
| 2144 N. Prospect | $89,000 | $63,750 | 1434332007 |
| 2206 N. Prospect | $120,000 | $86,850 | 1434332017 |
| 2208 N. Prospect | $133,500 | $89,190 | 1434332016 |
| 2212 N. Prospect | $125,000 | $84,180 | 1434332001 |
| TOTAL | $877,500 | $609,540 |
And here’s where all those properties are in a satellite photo, courtesy of Peoria GIS and Photoshop:
The school district really jumped the gun on these purchases, and the near million dollars they’ve spent will make it harder for them to back out of their plans to put Glen Oak school on this property. Instead of merely putting down earnest money on these properties until after the school board approved them, they went ahead and signed purchase agreements.
It’s understandable that they would pay more than fair market value for the homes, since the district initiated the sale and the owners want to make enough to pay for relocation and get a comparable house somewhere else. But now if the district abandons its present course of action, they would end up having to resell the property — at a significant loss. The $267,960 over fair market value they’ve spent won’t be easily absorbed by a district that’s already running in the red.
However, as expensive a mistake as it was, it would be a bigger mistake to spend another $15 million to build a school on the corner of Glen Oak Park. The district should listen to the residents, parents, city leaders, et al., and either renovate or raze and rebuild Glen Oak School on its present site. If they would just give up their crazy delusion that they need 15 acres in the middle of a dense urban area to build a new school, they could actually renovate/rebuild Glen Oak for a lot cheaper than what they were going to spend to put it in Glen Oak Park, and that would mitigate the loss from the properties for which they paid top dollar.