OPINION
By Mark Baratelli
200 high school students may end up attending school in an empty 1965 warehouse with 399 registered sexual predators and offenders within a 3 mile radius.
There's no grass or a single shade tree.
The only windows to look out of have jail-like widths and higher-than-eye level window sill heights.
An industrial dump truck's worth of noise drives by the warehouse daily. Students will be walking along that same road.
Nothing but auto parts businesses, warehouses, office buildings and parking lots surround the school.
The City's Municipal Planning Board said "schools are typically not compatible with industrial uses." Still, it recommended approval of a conditional use permit for an alternative high school called Prosperitas Leadership Academy on this property at 2100 & 2140 W. Washington Street. It recommended approval for an amendment for the Future Land Use designation from Industrial to Public Recreational and Institutional. It recommended approval for an amendment of the zoning from I-G to P.
This is the best idea ever to them.
In January 6, 2017 the building was sold for $1,050,000.00 by Wharton Investment Group LTD to Xihe Holdings LLC.
The Board feels a school of 200 high school students at risk for dropping out or have dropped out and returned and have many barriers to success including incarceration, extreme poverty, learning disabilities, language as well as behavioral considerations... "has the potential to become a catalyst for other (industrial) sites to be redeveloped, thus reducing industrial impacts to the area and supporting investment in community-serving uses." This is a school that chose to locate itself at their current location at 4504 S Orange Blossom Trail within a three mile radius of 237 registered sexual predators and offenders. But ok. It's a catalyst for change.
Sure.
There will be students walking along a street with industrial-size trucks zooming by, but it's ok because the school won't have any students under high school level.
Ahem.
The "pockets" of single family homes and one church in proximity to the school will do something. What exactly? The board didn't say.
Ok.
The site faces a primary street that provides good access from nearby residential areas. It's not known how many students actually live in these areas, so the benefit isn't able to be quantified.
Wow ok.
This goes before City Council for a final vote February 26th.
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