Quincy School Board considering property sale

QUINCY — Quincy School District officials have not set a timeline for the proposed sale of 155 acres south of the current Quincy city limits to the Port of Quincy.

“We’ll determine the timeline of the sale (during negotiations),” QSD Superintendent Nic Bergman said.

Bergman said Quincy School Board members have approved a resolution to sell the property to the port, but that the actual sale won’t be completed until the two sides negotiate a seller’s agreement.

The property was appraised for $2.2 million, Bergman said, and that’s the purchase price.

The land is located next to State Route 281 and is adjacent to the current city limits on the west side of SR 281. District officials purchased it in 2006 as the potential site for a new high school, along with land north of town, Bergman said. The land to the north is the site of the existing Quincy High School, opened in 2019.

At the time, board members weren’t sure where Quincy would grow, so they bought property at both ends of town, Bergman said. As things turned out, more housing was developed on the north side of town, so the high school was located there.

School board members held a public hearing Tuesday to get resident input on the proposed sale, with only one person asking to give testimony. Danna Del Porto expressed concern that the property eventually would be developed as a business that would use an excessive amount of water, putting pressure on the city of Quincy’s available supply.

Port commissioner Curt Morris said in an interview Wednesday that port officials don’t have any current plans for the property.

“Nobody is looking at (the property) right now,” said port commissioner Patric Connelly Wednesday.

“The Quincy School District property would be a good long-term investment,” Morris said.

All of the port’s current property is under contract with potential owners, Morris said, and as a result port commissioners are looking for additional developable land.

“As a port commission we’re just trying to position ourselves for the future,” he said.

The district purchased the property with proceeds from tax-exempt bonds. Because the district is still paying on the bonds the property must be sold to a public entity to avoid penalties, Bergman said.

Morris said development, if it comes, is still a few years in the future. The property is not in the city’s current urban growth boundary and must be in the UGB before it can be developed. Changes to the UGB must be approved by the Grant County Commissioners and are considered once each year. The earliest opportunity for an application would be 2023. If the change was approved, it wouldn’t go into effect until January 2024, Morris said. Possible annexation into the city of Quincy also would have to be resolved, he said.

“(The property) is a long-range investment,” Morris said.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.