The closed schools left unsold in the wake of the Red Plan cost money to maintain even while sitting empty. They must be insured, heated and monitored to avoid broken pipes and/or vandalism. I would guess that each year the several of them together cost the equivelent of four or five teachers. Morgan Park is one teacher’s worth by itself and its disposition was considered by Duluth City authorities today.
The boy who used to chase my daughter around the playground in second grade is now a property developer and he has attempted to purchase two of the school district’s properties. He gave up on the first, Rockridge, (about a half a teacher per year in maintenence) due to protests from neighbors who do not want the character of their neighborhood to change. Read into that what you will.
Now some concerns are being raised in the Morgan Park neighborhood that the multiplex apartments Aaron Schweiger proposes will not improve the neighborhood sufficiently to justfiy the City Okeying the development. Its out of the School Board’s hands now and up to the City to decide. Should the sale fall through’ as it did in the Rockridge neighborhood, the School District will either have to pay to have the building demolished and leave the land to sit vacant or continue incuring maintenence costs.
I have commented about Nimbyism in past posts. I thought I had written one up over the past nine seasons on my experience with it thirty years ago. Alas, I could not find mention of it.
It took place when I was a resident of the West End. We had just moved to our then new home off of Piedmont Avenue. Ensign school lay along the avenue which was sleepier than it is today although still trecherous for crossing guards. It closed in the first decade we lived in Duluth and was sitting empty. The lawyer husband of one of the school board members was an invester in a plan to turn the old building into apartments.
Our neighbors who had been unhappy about losing the school now worried that their new neighbors would change the area for the worst. They circulated a petition asking that it not be set to this purpose “because parking would be a problem.” I believe I politely declined to sign the petition but can’t recall with certainty.
The develoment never occurred. One day as Claudia and I drove home we saw a huge conflagration in old Ensign. We parked our car and walked over to join the other gawkers. Firemen were perched precariously on the top of the building fighting it. Suddenly a huge portion of a wall collapsed and to my shock a huge cheer went up from among the spectators.
I do not recall that any of the firefighters were injured. The old school was a total loss.
