District 742 Buys Land to Expand New Tech High School Site

ST. CLOUD -- The new Tech High School's site is now about five-acres bigger. At Thursday night's District 742 board meeting, they approved the purchase of a plot of land next to the school, that would provide a few different benefits.

Amy Skaalerud is the Interim Executive Director of Business Services. She says the district gets some good immediate advantages in buying this land.

"Two key advantages are, to have us have complete control over the easement so that we don't have to have an easement agreement, and we own the access into the site. The other advantage is to create a buffer between the district property and residential property."

The district bought the land for $230,000. Skaalerud adds, while they don't have current plans to develop the land further, they now have some extra space to expand things in the future.

"In addition, going into the future, it does provide us some other options in terms of potential parking, and there's other buildings on the site that could be used."

The money is coming out of operating capital reserves, which the district had some savings in. A priority in the purchase was not touching any bond money, as that budget has been long finalized.

The new Tech High School will hold 1600 students and is being built on County Road 74 and 33rd Street South, just south of Stride Academy.

The city of St. Cloud is also planning to turn the nearby Neena Creek area into a park. The school is still set for opening in the fall of 2019.