Thursday, September 23, 1999
Church, developers vie for prime land
New site sought for Fenwick High
BY SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Although no site has been chosen for a possible relocation of Fenwick High School, Middletown leaders have been meeting with its principal and archdiocesan officials for months to find a good site in the Middletown area to relocate the school.
Meanwhile, wherever the Archdiocese of Cincinnati chooses to build in fast-growing Warren and eastern Butler counties, it's facing skyrocketing land costs and a race with developers.
“We've gone through our land-use maps looking for vacant parcels near the interstate,” Susan Davis, Middletown assistant city manager, said Wednesday.
“We've looked for parcels in Middletown or close enough that they can be annexed in to the city. We want to help them find a solution.”
Ms. Davis' comments come a day after the archdiocese released details of a consultant's report that calls for moving the high school east of Interstate 75 and opening more elementary schools in
Butler and Warren counties between Interstates 71 and 75.
Ms. Davis said Middletown officials are eager to keep Fenwick in the city, where it has been since 1952 when it opened in Old South School on Main Street. It moved to its present Manchester Road site in 1962.
The recommendations, adopted this week by the archdiocese Commission on Education, are subject to approval by the Most Rev. Daniel E. Pilarczyk, archbishop of Cincinnati. The study, based on demographic studies, did not say where the high school should be located.
What's not a mystery is what the archdiocese could face in land costs in an area crawling with developers.
“We're going to be looking at a piece of property next week,” said Dan Andriacco, spokesman for the archdiocese. “But we're not going to be in the business of advertising where we're going to be building and drive up the cost of the property.”
High land costs are a concern, archdiocese officials said. But it won't block them from buying property they desire. Getting a donation of land might not be possible.
Chris Roll of Liberty Township is familiar with land cost problems. He is chairman of the school board for Mother Teresa Catholic Elementary School in Monroe. The private school opened last year with a kindergarten and this year with a first grade in office space donated by the archdiocese. School officials hope it grows to eighth grade. But they cannot find affordable land.
“We were seeing some pretty wild prices,” Mr. Roll said. “Some acreage is going for $100,000 an acre in prime areas down Cincinnati-Dayton Road.”
Land between $5,000 and $10,000 an acre is more in their range but hard to find.
“We have to work strictly off contributions and donations. We're kind of in an uphill battle for land. We're competing not only with developers, but with public schools looking for land as well.”
Area townships are eager to have Catholic schools settle in their area. But their hands are tied in offering incentives.
“They are very welcome here,” said David Gully, administrator of Union Township in Butler County. “There's nothing we can offer them. Economically they are already tax exempt.”
Still, cost is not the only determining factor in where to put a school, said Sister Kathryn Ann Connelly, superintendent of schools for the archdiocese and chairwoman of the Commission on Education.
The archdiocese would not want to put a high school in areas that would pull students from Catholic high schools in northern Hamilton County or south of Dayton. She thinks a new Fenwick High School might sit on more than 20 acres east of, but relatively close to, the present school.
“I would guess, and this is pure guess, that that's the place that was targeted by the study as they drove up and down the area,” she said.
Sue Kiesewetter contributed to this report.
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