BELGRADE — The City of Belgrade and Belgrade School District are partnering to address community needs with a proposed land swap.
"As people know, Belgrade is growing very, very rapidly. And we’re struggling to keep up with that demand to provide services to the community with just general space," says Belgrade City Manager, Neil Cardwell.
To address this issue, he says they had to get creative—utilizing the resources of the district and city to avoid a large financial ask from the community.
"So on the flip side of it, the school district, between those two elementary schools, there’s a lot of open space there that they’re not currently using. We will be able to use these existing schools and phase renovate them as we continue to grow into them," Cardwell says.
The proposed trade would give Belgrade city Quaw and Heck Elementary in exchange for city hall, all city properties on that block of Kennedy Street, as well as the old Belgrade library and Lion’s Park.
But for many, Quaw Elementary is a historic building, dating back almost 120 years.
Leslie Atkinson, of the Belgrade school district says, "We don’t have the funds to renovate and restore that building and so the longer it sits, the more it deteriorates."
"If we have the opportunity to hold onto a piece of land for when we do need it, it’s going to save the taxpayers money," she says.
After concerns were expressed over the location of a future elementary school—Lion's Park—Leslie and Neil say there are no plans to strip the community of baseball fields, rather—the city’s master plan will relocate those services prior to any future development.
"So we are hoping we can educate our community and let them know that this does not cost them anything. And long term is going to less costly, from the city’s perspective and school districts perspective," says Atkinson.
The voters will be able to make the final decision on November’s ballot.
For more information, view the Belgrade city resolution.
