The Northshore school board is considering the purchase of the 104.14-acre Wellington Hills property, formerly the Wellington Golf Course, from Snohomish County for $11.2 million as a long-term investment to manage potential future enrollment growth.

Northshore School District enrollment is projected to increase by 2,200 students over the next 10 years, and the purchase of the Wellington site is part of the district’s long-term plan to address potential future enrollment growth.

“The Wellington property presents the rare opportunity for the district to acquire a large parcel that is suitable in size, structure, location and affordability resulting in great long-term flexibility for any potential future need,” said Northshore School District Superintendent Larry Francois. “This is a strategic investment in the future and a way to manage district growth by positioning the district with land it can set aside and develop as growth occurs.”

The Wellington property is located near the Urban Growth Area (UGA) boundary, provides flexibility for the long term and is situated in an area of the district that will help provide needed capacity in the future. The district has no immediate plans to develop the property before 2022 at the earliest.

“Ideally we would choose to have all schools within established communities that would allow for a high number of walkers and minimal busing,” said Superintendent Larry Francois. “However, our needs for sites of a minimum size of 25-plus acres is prohibitive, both from the availability of such sites as well as competition with developers, cost and the fact that as a public agency we cannot pay more than the assessed value of the property.”

The district’s alternative would be to acquire properties through condemnation and declaration of eminent domain, which is not a course of action the district would choose to take. Even if the district did choose to do so, properties inside the UGA closer to population centers cost four to six times higher than properties of similar size outside the UGA.

In 2010, the district purchased a 34-acre site in the north end of the district as a potential school site (we refer to as the Maltby site) and purchased the 61-acre site for North Creek High School in 2012. The community passed a bond measure in 2014 to fund construction of North Creek High School, which is currently underway and scheduled to open in the fall of 2017. North Creek High School is the first school to be built in the district in 20 years; the last school opened was Timbercrest Junior High School in 1997.

The school board has approved the pursuit of funding through a 2018 bond measure for construction of school facilities on the Maltby site to provide additional much needed relief for significant enrollment growth in the north end of the school district. If the 2018 bond measure is approved by voters, construction would begin immediately and the school site would be projected to open in 2020.

The school board is expected to make a decision on the Wellington property purchase at its Oct. 27 board meeting and will carefully consider community input, data and long-term district needs for suitable property to help address future enrollment growth.