Stevenson High School to buy land next to campus
Stevenson High School officials plan to buy a nearby residential property to ease the planned construction of a turn lane.
The 1.1-acre property, at 16139 W. Port Clinton Road, is just northwest of the Lincolnshire campus. It's not far from the varsity baseball field and the school's Port Clinton Road entrance.
Two houses stand on the property: a two-story house built in 1989 and a smaller guesthouse built in 2004. Both have been vacant for more than a year.
Stevenson officials want to create an eastbound turn lane for drivers trying to get to the school from Port Clinton Road, and owning the property will make it easier to install that lane, school spokesman Jim Conrey said.
"With the property, we would have an additional 11 feet of width ... directly west of the Port Clinton entrance," Conrey said. "This is critical because right now, it's very difficult for eastbound school buses to pull onto the campus."
A turn lane there also will allow for cars to enter campus while others leave, Conrey said. It also will eliminate the need for a traffic light.
Stevenson officials plan to keep the houses on the land but haven't yet decided how to use them. At the very least, Conrey said, their basements could be used for storage.
The property owners have settled on a $625,000 purchase price, officials said. The sale was contingent on Lincolnshire's annexing the property, which happened at Monday's village board meeting.
The site had been in unincorporated Vernon Township.
The village board also amended the special permit for the school to include the Port Clinton land.
If the deal goes through, officials would expect to create the turn lane by the 2018-19 school year.