GLENVILLE — A $10,000 grant from The Capital Region Land Bank will help to board up and secure the Mekeel school property on Cypress Drive in Glenville.
Local residents have raised concerns about the vacant school property for the past few years, and the $10,000 grant helps to cover the $30,000 cost to board up and secure the property. The other $20,000 came from the Mekeel school, Glenville Supervisor Chris Koetze said.
“It’s now boarded up, secured, the graffiti has been covered up,” Glenville Supervisor Chris Koetzle said. “Of course, that’s an ongoing battle because as soon as you cover it up, it comes back, so that’s going to continue to be an ongoing battle. But, it is secured finally. It took awhile, unfortunately, but we finally got there.”
The property was purchased by Mekeel Christian Academy from the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Central School District in 2016 for $535,000, according to county property records.
The property made news last summer when a rubbish fire needed to be extinguished inside the vacant building in August. In July 2021, a group of more than 30 residents concerned about the property attended a neighborhood meeting to discuss the unused building.
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“We made sure that they got that place boarded up, secured, and graffiti cleaned,” Koetzle said. “And, now that it’s stabilized, so to speak, we can start thinking about what’s next for the property.”
“This has been at the top of our list of properties that we’ve been working on to try to rehab and clean up,” Koetzle said. “We’ve been working with the owner, with a developer who has some ideas of what they want to do with it if they end up purchasing it.”
The property is located deep within a suburban residential neighborhood, Koezel said. He explained the property is only zoned for a single housing development.
“I think a lot of neighbors have been opposed to some of this because of the traffic it brings potentially down Cypress which is a very long road deep into a single family neighborhood,” Koetzle said.
He added that following a discussion with the potential buyer, a number of different options are being considered for the property, including finding a different way to access the property to bypass the residential neighborhood. There is also talk of whether the building will be demolished or whether it can be rehabilited for use.
Concerns have quieted down quite a bit since the property has been secured, Koetzle said.
“We had a lot of issues prior to that (the building being secured),” Ketzle said. “Now I think folks are just happy that it’s secure, and they know we’re in talks with potential buyers. So I think everyone is just waiting to hear what comes of that.”
The town is going to adhere to zoning regulations and work with the neighbors to create a solution they find acceptable, Koetzle said.
The Land Bank’s goal is to clean up blight, Land Bank Board Chair and Schenectady County Legislator Richard Ruzzo said.
“Obviously, it’s all about making sure communities and neighborhoods have the best outcomes. One of the tools in the toolbox is the Land Bank. Our mission is to remove the worst of the worst.”
The property had become a “really bad eyesore” with graffiti and broken glass, Ruzzo said.
“We listened to what the school needed, and I saw the community outreach, or really outrage,” Ruzzo said. “I saw a number of individuals in the community who said this is ‘ridiculous’ and ‘it can’t be this way,’ and we thought as a board that it was important to try to help.”
The Mekeel Christian Academy has been in operation since 1976. The school is located in the village of Scotia. The 38-acre site in Glenville was a former Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake elementary school.
“We are truly grateful to the Land Bank for their commitment to continual improvement and development in our region,” Chad Bowman, Head of School at Mekeel said in a statement. “Their partnership with us in boarding up the building gets us one step closer to a solution that will revitalize the property and enhance the neighborhood.”
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That property has an awful lot of wet land and forest associated with it. The School Board she town tear down the building and make a park.