Washington Local School District’s planned purchase of the former Tamaron Golf Course is a smart move that will give the district some room for future expansion and nature study.
The school board agreed Monday to authorize negotiation to buy the 55-acre site north of Alexis Road for $1 million.
Right now, open space is so scarce in Washington Local that the district is barely able to meet the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission’s minimum size — 15 acres — for its planned new middle school on Harvest Lane.
The district is also looking long-term at the future of Whitmer High School, with 2,200 students. Like moving pieces on a chess board, the district plans to eventually raze Jefferson and Washington junior high schools, which are next to the high school.
Those buildings are too old and obsolete to qualify for refurbishment funding from the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission. So when the time comes to replace Whitmer, it will go up where Jefferson is now, facing Edgar Street.
As for Tamaron, the golf course that closed after 92 years in 2017 will provide Washington Local with a veritable outdoors teaching environment within the city limits, with prairie grasses and wildlife habitat — “country living for city kids,” in the words of Superintendent Kadee Anstadt.
The shortage of buildable land in Washington Local was made clear by the complex real estate deal made to move the Washington Branch library off Harvest Lane to make room for the planned new grade-6-8 middle school to replace the two junior high schools.
The Toledo Lucas County Public Library will move the Washington Branch library to the former Food Town building on Alexis.
Longtime residents of this northwest corner of the city of Toledo may remember that the library and the school district made the opposite switch in 1985. The district gave the Harvest Lane parcel to the library system and acquired a library parcel on Whitmer Road.
The district’s immediate plans for Tamaron are to site practice playing fields there. Long-term plans are for a future elementary school.
Property like that is at a premium in West Toledo and preserving it for the school system is a good strategy.
First Published September 30, 2023, 4:00 a.m.
