SHERIDAN — Local residents received an in-depth look into what the Fifth Street property, the former site of a Holly Seed facility adjacent to Sheridan High School, could become in the future during a report to the Sheridan County School District 2 Board of Trustees at its regular monthly meeting Monday night.
SCSD2 officials presented the report to the board as an informational item Monday after two months of committee-level meetings with various community groups.
“As promised, we’re providing a detailed summary,” said Mitch Craft, SCSD2 assistant superintendent for curriculum and assessment.
The district accepted a $1.4 million donation from Homer “Scotty” and Janet Scott in February to purchase the nearly 7.8-acre site, the former home of Holly Seed, along Fifth Street and adjacent to Sheridan High School.
The property includes as many as five structures, including a main building with office space, a 4,000-square-foot shop, laboratory and three greenhouses.
With property in hand, a capital construction committee including four school board members hosted a series of stakeholder meetings starting in June. Craft called the meetings with longtime supporters Phase 1, with a trio of meetings with focus groups on local food, youth sports and economic development being Phase 2.
“The discussions were robust,” Craft said. “They were truly valuable to our committee.”
According to Craft, administrative staff asked those attending the meetings, which were closed to the public, three basic questions, including their vision for the property, what would be the potential community impact of that vision and how could the vision be funded, knowing the district would be unable to contribute.
“It was an unexpected gift,” Craft said of the Scotts’ donation. “We went into that purchase without any thought or any plan. It’s not land we needed but we acquired it.”
District officials provided a list of takeaways from the informational meetings, which were summarized as the following:
Local Food
- Coordinate community efforts around farm-to-table, ranch-to-table, sustainable food, school gardens, agriculture, culinary, meat processing, etc.;
- Develop curriculum and programs integrating sustainable and local food production into schools
- Enhance opportunities for inclusion of local food in school meals;
- Host events such as FFA conferences, grower conferences, etc.; and
- Design a facility that supports and enhances the above focus areas.
Youth Sports
- Consider a multi-purpose indoor space that accommodates the needs of multiple sports; include room for spectators;
- Address the needs of district, community, and club sports;
- Consider community connections such as equipment rental, trail-system, etc.;
- Meet the needs of multiple generations: pre-K, K-12, neighborhood citizens, active older adults, etc.; and
- Host events such as indoor track meets.
Economic Development
- An indoor facility could meet multiple needs across the community;
- A facility could host conferences, trade shows, and events; this creates potential revenue generation; and
- Consider factors such as an inventory of existing and potential facilities in Sheridan, grant funding opportunities, consideration of facility management and hotel capacity in the area.
Craft said the economic development group was, at first, not included but was scheduled after listening to input from the first two focus groups.
“In the school district, we have expertise in hosting athletic events but we don’t have experience in hosting such (community) events,” he said. “We’re simply listening. Some interesting ideas were starting to congeal. Still, there are no plans.”
While emphasizing that no decisions regarding the future development of the Fifth Street property have been made, Craft outlined possible “next steps” the committee and district could take, including collecting input from the public, exploring grant opportunities and considering the potential size of a facility on the land to help determine possible uses.
Craft said another potential step for committee members would be to examine how development of the property would work in conjunction with plans for local city parks. That was one suggestion made during the meeting with the Economic Development focus group, which included Sheridan Mayor Richard Bridger, who is also the business manager for the Sheridan Recreation District.
The Sheridan City Council adopted an update to its Parks, Facilities and Open Spaces Master Plan in August 2019, with the document reportedly designed to provide a guide for the maintenance and development of the city’s parks and recreation system.
Susan Wilson, chair of the SCSD2 board and member of the capital construction committee, said the meetings provided committee members with a great deal of input but, like Craft stated, that no decisions have been made and the project would not be funded by the school district.
“We have no money,” she said. “All of this is in the planning stages.”
Still, Trustee Ed Fessler, who is not a member of the committee, said the report helped answer several questions he had after accepting the donation to buy the property.
“I really appreciate the detailed report on this,” he said.
"We went into more detail than we normally do," Craft added. "We knew this is a topic people are interested in."
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SCSD2 officials provide review of input on Fifth Street property - The Sheridan Press
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