Recent past offers insight into how new high school will shape development

New school construction and the changes to school attendance boundaries can have a significant impact on a community’s development. With a new high school on the drawing board for Columbia and boundary changes pending, recent history may offer some ideas about how these factors can change the face of a city.

Two men who are extremely familiar with development in Boone County say the construction of a new high school east of Columbia will almost certainly spur development in that area, though neither can offer a timetable for when that new growth might arrive. Both see new business and residential construction as part of the coming development with enhanced tax revenue and rising real estate values as parts of the package.

Boone County Assessor Tom Schauwecker and Brent Jones, the president of the Columbia Board of Realtors, are in broad agreement about the probable impact of the planned high school. The men recently spoke to the Columbia Business Times in separate interviews.

The new high school is to be located on an 80-acre site at the corner of Range Line Street and New Haven Road. It is expected to be completed in three phases, with the first phase opening in the fall of 2010.

In the assessor’s office, greatly enlarged aerial photographs taken in the spring of 1992 are combined with computer overlays to illustrate the impact of new schools on north Columbia.

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” Schauwecker says.

The southern edge of the 1992 aerial photos shows Derby Ridge Elementary School, which opened in 1991. It is surrounded by near-empty farmland. The east and west boundaries of the photo, Highway 63 and Rangeline Road, show an area with few homes or businesses compared with today. The Boone County Jail is visible on the northern edge. There is nothing on the site of what is now Lange Middle School, which opened in 1997.

Then add the computer overlays, which show new roads and how the land has been subdivided for new homes and businesses.

“We’ve seen explosive growth around the elementary and middle schools,” Schauwecker said.

Not including banks, retailers and other businesses, the area now has 1,500 to 2,000 new homes that did not exist in the spring of 1992. When the land was agricultural, tax revenues from the area were not high. Today, each house pays about $1,700 per year in taxes, Schauwecker said.

“The presence of a school enhances the desirability of an area for development,” he said.

The schools were not the only factor in the growth, the assessor said. The addition of access ramps at the intersection of Oakland Gravel Road and Highway 63 increased accessibility to the area and helped spur development, he said.

However, Schauwecker also sounded a cautionary note on the future development as it relates to new schools.

“If you do not have good access to infrastructure, especially sewer, development will lag,” he said.

Columbia Public Schools officials have said the need to expand sewer service to the new high school site will require study.

Realtor Brent Jones is one of the owners of the of The Jones Co., a real estate company. He has watched Columbia grow for over a quarter-century.

“In general, when a school is built at any location, especially a high school, real estate around that high school will go up in value,” he said. “It will not be overnight, but it will come.”

Jones expects the pattern to be followed at the new high school, though not too quickly.

“You won’t see businesses moving in until you see the population you to support them. I think you’ll see changes,” Jones said. “It will be many years before it is fully developed.”

He cites growth in the area around Rock Bridge High School as an example. The school opened in the early 1970s.

“It was really way out when it opened,” Jones said. “That was a long way out, back then. Look where we are today.”

“I think with time, we’ll see growth on the east side of town. It will not be overnight. It will be many, many years.”

Don Ludwig is chairman of the committees that will redraw boundaries for the Columbia schools to incorporate the changes anticipated by the new high school and a new grade school proposed for the city’s northeast area, Ludwig said he did not have information on how boundary changes affect real estate values in the Columbia area, but existing conditions are taken into consideration.

“We try not to disturb neighborhoods or subdivisions,” Ludwig said. “We don’t want to disturb walkers. Families tend to move to schools that kids can walk to.”

Ludwig offered an additional thought on the coming changes.

“We’re not just changing boundaries, we’re adding a new school,” he said.

Based on his own observations, Ludwig said, growth follows new schools.

“When Rock Bridge (High School) was built, there was nothing down south of Providence Road,” he said. Since then, Ludwig said, “there has been tremendous development south of the city.”