LOLO – If you are in the market for a new six-building school campus, the Lolo School District is now officially taking offers as school officials try to build a new school off of Farm Lane.
“The impetus for this request or proposal came from the school board after many years of wrestling with the idea of how to build a new school on the property we own on Farm Lane,” Lolo Superintendent Dale Olinger said.
“We heard from our community that selling this property as part of the package to build a new school would probably help the vote when it comes time to put this before the voters, so this is the board’s response,” he added.
The school board will review all of the offers it receives sometime in August or September, but money isn’t the only thing they are concerned about — what the buyer plans on doing with the property also matters.
“So, we are hoping that developers or investors will take a look at our 30 some acres here. Put together a kind of proposal for both what they would like to do with it and what they would be willing to pay for it and the board will consider those in August and September,” Olinger told MTN News.
Recent upticks in real estate development in Lolo has the school district looking to strike while the iron is hot.
“We do think its good timing. I mean our neighbors to the north here are supposed to be developing the site here as early as this summer. And there’s other building going on in Lolo as well. So, yeah, the timing seems to be as good as it can be,” Olinger said.
He added that if Lolo gets their new school building it could improve the student life on campus immensely.
“What we have here is a school facility that has six buildings and it’s on a hillside with three different levels. So you look at accessibility and safety as two of our primary concerns,” Olinger stated.
“We have a lot of entrances and exits and anybody with even the slightest mobility challenges can’t get around on this campus very well so this is really a responsible thing to do for our kids and their education,” he continued.
No official value of the property has been determined yet and the school board is not putting a minimum bid value, so proposals will play a big factor in determining the value of the property.
