In the past 16 years, Center Grove has spent more than $700,000 to buy five homes near the high school that could be used for future expansions or other projects.
Now, the school district is looking to buy as many as three more homes.
Last week, the school board approved getting two appraisals on the home at 2858 S. Morgantown Road, across the street from the school district’s professional resource center. And last month, the school board approved getting appraisals on two other homes on Hornaday Drive in the Pennington Estates neighborhood, off Morgantown Road, south of the high school.
If school officials decide to buy the home on Morgantown Road, it would be the sixth the school district has purchased along that road. The first home was purchased in 2000, and the most recent were purchased earlier this year.
In total, those homes have cost the school district more than $779,000, according to county property records.
In the past seven months, the school district has bought two homes and is considering purchasing three more.
Two of the homes are in the Pennington Estates neighborhood, which school officials are interested in buying homes in because it borders school property. The most recent home being considered on Morgantown Road is not included in the Pennington Estates neighborhood. But it is just north of another home the school district purchased in the past, assistant superintendent Bill Long said.
Exactly what will be done with the properties has not yet been decided, school officials have said. The school district has paid to tear down at least one of the homes.
School officials don’t have specific plans for the properties, and instead are looking to buy them as part of a long-range plan to make sure land is available for future needs, Long said.
The next step would be to bring back the average of the appraisals and get permission to purchase the properties, Long said.
