Laraway seeks approval to build school, move away from trucks

JOLIET – Laraway School could be moved off a heavily used truck route by fall 2018 if voters approve, school officials say.

A referendum on the plan to build a new school on Rowell Avenue is slated for Nov. 8.

The school sits on Laraway Road, which is heavily used by semitrailers, trash haulers and gravel trucks moving to and from the CenterPoint Intermodal Center-Joliet, a Waste Management landfill and the Vulcan quarry.

Laraway School District 70C several years ago bought land on Rowell Avenue with hopes to someday build a school there.

School officials have decided to move ahead with the plan, using money from the large industrial tax base that provides a bright side to being located in the middle of so much industrial activity.

“We’re pretty confident we’ll be able to build the building, pay off the debt and not raise taxes,” Laraway Superintendent Joe Salmieri said.

The two-school district has $10 million in reserves, thanks in large part to the large amount of corporate personal property replacement tax it collects from the industrial expansion on the south end of Joliet.

The new school is estimated to cost $25 million.

The plan, Salmieri said, is to spend $5 million from reserves and pay off 20-year bonds that will be used to finance construction with the $1.8 million a year Laraway now collects from the corporate personal property replacement tax.

“It’s only growing,” Salmieri said, noting industrial projects under construction or on the way. “Ikea’s not online yet. Cadence is not online. Amazon’s second building and Mars are still coming. And, we’re getting $1.8 million a year.”

The cost to pay off the bonds will be about $1.5 million a year, Salmieri said. The district estimates that revenue from its industrial base will grow to somewhere between $2.2 million and $2.5 million a year.

The referendum

But school officials have to make their case to Laraway voters.

The school board at one point planned to issue the bonds without a referendum, since no tax increase is involved, Salmieri said. But residents petitioned for a referendum.

The district has an enrollment that hovers around 450 with most students attending Laraway School. A second school, Oak Valley on Richards Street, is attended by kindergartners and first-graders.

Laraway School is for sale, and the previous plan was to sell it first and then seek a referendum allowing a property tax increase to pay for the new school.

Finding a buyer on those terms is a problem, said school board Vice President Saul Brass.

“I could not see a business say, ‘We’ll buy your property. We’ll wait for you to pass a referendum. We’ll wait for you to build a new building before you move,’” Brass said, describing the chain of events such a sale would require. “It’s not going to happen.”

Salmieri and Brass were at school registration Wednesday, providing information on the plan to build a school.

Dodging the trucks

Some parents stopped by, but not all.

Keyonia Bass, who has a daughter at Laraway, said she was not aware of the referendum, but she understands the need for a new location.

“It is bad, especially in the morning, to get out with all the traffic,” Bass said, adding that she sometimes has to give up on the left turn onto Laraway Road that would be her direct route home. “I have to sometimes turn right to get out and dodge all the trucks.”

At other times, trucks are backed up so far that they line up in front of the school, bringing traffic to a stop and leaving parents looking for creative ways to get in and out of the school parking lot.

“Sometimes, some of the truckers are nice, and they’ll allow you to get between them while they’re waiting to get onto Route 53,” said Delores Singleton-Stewart, who has two granddaughters at Laraway.

Parent Crystal Diaz said, “We definitely need a new school, especially because of this location. The high traffic from the semitrailers is getting ridiculous.”

However, Diaz questioned whether there is any good spot to put a school because of the growing truck traffic in the district.

“We still have to take Laraway to get to the new school,” she said.

Brass acknowledged that is true for many residents, but added that most of the district population lives east of Route 53, another truck corridor, so many won’t have to cross Route 53 to get to the new school, which is on their side of the highway, he said.

School officials do not expect to see trucks on the stretch of Rowell Avenue where the new school would be located. The 26-acre site, now a cornfield, is just south of the Sugar Creek neighborhood.

“We believe we’re doing the best for the majority of people in terms of safety,” Brass said.

If the referendum passes, construction would start in spring with an expected school opening in fall 2018.