Groninger Buys Gateway Property From Warsaw Schools
July 16, 2020 at 2:16 a.m.
By Jackie [email protected]
The offer was $100,000, with a $20,000 endowment to the building trades program, Chief Financial Officer April Fitterling said after the meeting. She believes the closing will be Aug. 31 and there were no stipulations.
“This is an exciting announcement because when we did a cross analysis in order to talk about saving dollars inside our schools, we do have facility planning,” Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said. As they looked at the old Madison Elementary school, which was retired as an elementary school between eight and 10 years ago, “we looked at the cost of that and it was going to cost Warsaw Community Schools between $5 and $10 million.” Even then, WCS had an aging building that does not have the “same purpose as it once had. It has a lot of great memories to go with it.”
Terry Sims, Warsaw Community Education Association president, said he believed the building was built in 1954.
“When we look at what we’re going to do with that property, we’ve been able to move our alternative education programs out of there and found other space inside our buildings,” Hoffert said.
WCS found costs with Gateway were ongoing with such things as electric and heating/cooling.
Gateway is a little bit of a hidden gem in the sense it’s about three or four blocks from downtown Warsaw, Groninger said. Seeing a residential housing need, Groninger wanted to see if that property could possibly be used for that purpose.
There was a housing study done and Warsaw as an area is really lacking housing, Hoffert said. One of the benefits of more housing is “more housing, more kids,” as well as more funding coming into the school corporation. Housing is something they look at when WCS brings in new teachers.
One idea Groninger offered was possibly tearing down the old part of the building and building it back up. The other portion of the building could possibly be repurposed as something like a YMCA.
Groninger said a different style of residential housing is being looked into called a pocket neighborhood where the houses are “more inward facing,” lawns are more common areas and garages are in back.
Hoffert said pocket neighborhoods are very chic and trendy right now.
The Gateway property is a fairly large piece of land and Groninger will have to look further at what he can actually do with the property. Groninger said he’d like to talk to the board when he has more details.
Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Dani Barkey updated the board on Warsaw Community High School’s graduation Friday.
“Back in early May, we started a graduation taskforce and one of the things we heard loud and clear from the representative group – many of them who were seniors – we heard loud and clear they wanted an in-person graduation. And a lot of us were worried of how to make that happen with the governor’s orders, but because of a lot of planning from a lot of different people, we’ll be able to make that realized,” Barkey said.
There are some things the high school is doing to adhere to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s orders that are different than normal, “but if that’s what it means to have an in-person graduation, we’re going to do it and we’re going to do it really well to keep everyone safe and secure,” she said.
The doors to Tiger Athletic Complex on Fisher Field will open at 6:15 p.m., which gives people an hour and 15 minutes to get seated.
Graduation starts at 7:30 p.m. and is expected to last 1-1/2 hours, according to a news release from WCS.
As people come in through the gate, they will get colored bracelets. The high school has arranged seating so every other row is skipped and there are spaces in between individuals or couples and people will be seated according to colored pods, Barkey said.
“We have pods of 200 so that we can groups separate. We even have colored bathrooms that different colored pods are allocated to,” Barkey said.
While every precaution will be taken, masks are requested, the news release stated.
Barkey asked those not attending the graduation to not congregate around the entrance point to Fisher Field.
WCS “is trying to make the best graduation possible,” she said. A jumbotron will show the graduation.
WIOE will livestream graduation on wioe.com On the homepage, there will be a choice titled "Tiger Grad Video." The video will be located at the top of the video section and should begin playing automatically. If not, clicking any of the video choices will launch livestream.
An audio-only production will be broadcast on WLQZ, Z93.9FM. News Now Warsaw will host a livestream on the News Now Warsaw Facebook page at www.facebook.com/newsnowwarsaw, according to the press release.
With the assistance of the Warsaw Police Department and school resource officers, graduation attendees may arrive on campus from the Ind. 15 or Logan Street points of entry and will be directed by officers to designated parking lots, stated the news release. There will be no parking permitted in Tiger Circle.
Hoffert said graduation is not something people should go to if they are not feeling well.
This is still a public event and WCS doesn’t want to put anyone at risk, he said. “If you are a high-risk person, do not attend this event.”
He said the graduate will understand. He also said it will be a long time on bleachers, so if people are suspectible to heat, to be aware of that.
The offer was $100,000, with a $20,000 endowment to the building trades program, Chief Financial Officer April Fitterling said after the meeting. She believes the closing will be Aug. 31 and there were no stipulations.
“This is an exciting announcement because when we did a cross analysis in order to talk about saving dollars inside our schools, we do have facility planning,” Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said. As they looked at the old Madison Elementary school, which was retired as an elementary school between eight and 10 years ago, “we looked at the cost of that and it was going to cost Warsaw Community Schools between $5 and $10 million.” Even then, WCS had an aging building that does not have the “same purpose as it once had. It has a lot of great memories to go with it.”
Terry Sims, Warsaw Community Education Association president, said he believed the building was built in 1954.
“When we look at what we’re going to do with that property, we’ve been able to move our alternative education programs out of there and found other space inside our buildings,” Hoffert said.
WCS found costs with Gateway were ongoing with such things as electric and heating/cooling.
Gateway is a little bit of a hidden gem in the sense it’s about three or four blocks from downtown Warsaw, Groninger said. Seeing a residential housing need, Groninger wanted to see if that property could possibly be used for that purpose.
There was a housing study done and Warsaw as an area is really lacking housing, Hoffert said. One of the benefits of more housing is “more housing, more kids,” as well as more funding coming into the school corporation. Housing is something they look at when WCS brings in new teachers.
One idea Groninger offered was possibly tearing down the old part of the building and building it back up. The other portion of the building could possibly be repurposed as something like a YMCA.
Groninger said a different style of residential housing is being looked into called a pocket neighborhood where the houses are “more inward facing,” lawns are more common areas and garages are in back.
Hoffert said pocket neighborhoods are very chic and trendy right now.
The Gateway property is a fairly large piece of land and Groninger will have to look further at what he can actually do with the property. Groninger said he’d like to talk to the board when he has more details.
Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Dani Barkey updated the board on Warsaw Community High School’s graduation Friday.
“Back in early May, we started a graduation taskforce and one of the things we heard loud and clear from the representative group – many of them who were seniors – we heard loud and clear they wanted an in-person graduation. And a lot of us were worried of how to make that happen with the governor’s orders, but because of a lot of planning from a lot of different people, we’ll be able to make that realized,” Barkey said.
There are some things the high school is doing to adhere to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s orders that are different than normal, “but if that’s what it means to have an in-person graduation, we’re going to do it and we’re going to do it really well to keep everyone safe and secure,” she said.
The doors to Tiger Athletic Complex on Fisher Field will open at 6:15 p.m., which gives people an hour and 15 minutes to get seated.
Graduation starts at 7:30 p.m. and is expected to last 1-1/2 hours, according to a news release from WCS.
As people come in through the gate, they will get colored bracelets. The high school has arranged seating so every other row is skipped and there are spaces in between individuals or couples and people will be seated according to colored pods, Barkey said.
“We have pods of 200 so that we can groups separate. We even have colored bathrooms that different colored pods are allocated to,” Barkey said.
While every precaution will be taken, masks are requested, the news release stated.
Barkey asked those not attending the graduation to not congregate around the entrance point to Fisher Field.
WCS “is trying to make the best graduation possible,” she said. A jumbotron will show the graduation.
WIOE will livestream graduation on wioe.com On the homepage, there will be a choice titled "Tiger Grad Video." The video will be located at the top of the video section and should begin playing automatically. If not, clicking any of the video choices will launch livestream.
An audio-only production will be broadcast on WLQZ, Z93.9FM. News Now Warsaw will host a livestream on the News Now Warsaw Facebook page at www.facebook.com/newsnowwarsaw, according to the press release.
With the assistance of the Warsaw Police Department and school resource officers, graduation attendees may arrive on campus from the Ind. 15 or Logan Street points of entry and will be directed by officers to designated parking lots, stated the news release. There will be no parking permitted in Tiger Circle.
Hoffert said graduation is not something people should go to if they are not feeling well.
This is still a public event and WCS doesn’t want to put anyone at risk, he said. “If you are a high-risk person, do not attend this event.”
He said the graduate will understand. He also said it will be a long time on bleachers, so if people are suspectible to heat, to be aware of that.
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