School board will consider contract to purchase site of former H.D. Smith headquarters
The District 186 board of education will likely take up at its next meeting a contract to purchase a 41-acre site that could bring administrative offices under one roof and be a site for the building of a new elementary school.
The property off 11th and Stevenson Drive is the former site of H.D. Smith Co.'s corporate office. H.D. Smith was a privately held pharmaceutical wholesaler.
Years ago, it was the site of Fiatallis, which left Springfield in 1985.
The purchase price to the district is $1.6 million.
It could be the future site of an elementary school. In May, the board voted 6-1 to include Southern View into a consolidation plan that already included Hazel Dell and Laketown schools.
The "dream," said Superintendent Jennifer Gill after Monday's board meeting, is to bring cabinet members under one roof, including the business office, payroll offices, technology staff and the special education office.
More:Consolidation is a go as Southern View Elementary joins Hazel Dell, Laketown as one school
Currently, cabinet members are housed in buildings spread all over the city, Gill said.
The property is undergoing remediation with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, said Daniel Hamilton, an attorney at Brown, Hay & Stephens, though that process is almost complete.
Once the remediation is complete and reviewed, it is anticipated that a "No Further Remediation," or NFR letter, will be issued for each of the parcels. Gill expected that letter to come by January or February.
That is saying the property is "safe to use," Hamilton said. Closing would come 30 days after issuance of the NFR.
The district held three consolidation hearings in the spring and at each of the meetings it did present the property as a possibility for a new school, Gill said.
The superintendent added that the streets give it favorable traffic patterns. The corporate office would be move-in ready and would double the size of the current board room at 1900 West Monroe Street.
Miller, who cast the lone "no" vote against consolidation, said he is still troubled by the site.
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"We all know the footprint that Allis-Chalmers (and later Fiat-Allis) had on that commercial park," Miller said afterward. "If you're a Springfieldian, you know what happened on that site: lots of petroleum, lots of solvents, lots of paints, heavy manufacturing from, what that time, was a globally competitive company which, in its heyday, was before the EPA.
"It's not a shock that we're still talking about several remediations to try to get this letter from the EPA."
Miller said there were "a multitude of reasons" why the district should be looking at building the school closer to neighborhoods. He was also concerned what the closing of those schools might mean for the neighborhoods, especially if the buildings go unsold.
The board next meets Dec. 5.
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: District 186 Springfield may buy former H.D. Smith headquarters
