I am very pleased that King Township has reached an agreement with The York Catholic District School Board to purchase the former Holy Name School property on King Road in King City. The opportunities created by this acquisition are numerous; and now that there is a deal we can flesh out the details and make our choices to achieve the best value. A lead option is to repurpose the existing building for needed community and municipal facilities. As the size of the existing building is undoubtedly more that is needed appropriate partners requiring space will be sought out; potential ones have already been identified. In addition there will be continued use of a playing field behind the building.
Purchase price is $2.95 million. Initially the acquisition will be funded by our reserves; but as we work through the whole process of identifying partners and rationalization of our facilities across the Township I will certainly be looking to see that funds are returned to the reserves.
This is an excellent opportunity for us “to walk the talk” of our Sustainability Plan. We are going to re-use an asset; our implementation plan to bring it to life must include the environment, the financials, the socio-cultural and the economics.
Can you please tell me why I have heard from several people that we, the Townhip,
already own the property on which sits
Holy Name School, and why do we have to
purchase it again?
I don’t know for sure why people say this; you will have to ask them. The school board owned the property and built the building. The rule is that when a school becomes surplus it is 1st offered to the host municipality i.e. it is given first right of refusal prior to it being offered to the public. There is actually some other jurisdiction which is given 1st right of refusal before it gets to the municipality; so for example I know that OPP had opportunity but decided not to pursue; perhaps there were others. But, point is that they did not take the opportunity and it was our turn.