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• <br /> Closed Schools: Impact on Community Usage <br /> Page 6 <br /> 111/1 <br /> III . Surrounding school district experiences? <br /> Our sub-commitee spoke with two neighboring communities regarding alternative <br /> uses for secondary and elementary school buildings. The two communities were <br /> St. Louis Park which converted Central Junior High School into a community center, <br /> and the Robbinsdale School District which is in the process of reviewing a long <br /> range planning report for alternate uses of Robbinsdale Jr. High School . <br /> In Robbinsdale's situation the school was closed as an educational institution due <br /> to declining enrollments in 1979 , but the City- continued to use selected facilities <br /> for park and recreation programs. The City of Robbinsdale did a re-use questionaire <br /> which revealed that local residents had major concerns regarding the economic, tax base, <br /> and land use implications of any subsequent development on the site. Residents preferred <br /> uses for the site centered around government or institutional use of the building , <br /> conversion of the building to residential use , and potentially, residential development <br /> 1110 <br /> of the adjacent outdoor facilities and parking lot. <br /> With those considerations in mind the City authorized a study by Barton/Aschman and <br /> Associates which reviewed the status of the school site and proposed three alternatives <br /> which are listed in Addendum F. The report 's recommendation is to retain the facility <br /> as an institutional facility by selling the facility to Northwestern College of <br /> Chiropractic and complement it with some residential development on the adjacent <br /> property. <br /> One of the major concerns of the study was to retain the usage of the recreational <br /> facilities by the municipality. The City of Robbinsdale parallels the Cities of <br /> Mounds View and Arden Hills quite closely in both demographic characteristics <br /> and their dependence on local school facilities for community programming. During <br /> the interim before the long range report was completed, the City of Robbinsdale <br /> entered into a lease agreement with the School District whereby the City basically <br /> assumed all operation and maintenance costs of the school and the school district in <br /> turn forwarded their projected "mothballing" costs of $48,000 to the City. Although <br /> 111/1 <br /> it wasn't quite that simplistic the bottom line is that in 1980 the City assumed <br /> control of the school 's facilities and opened up the Robbinsdale Community Center on <br /> a skeletal basis. Costs are again difficult to pinpoint but the general figures for <br /> operating the Robbinsdale Jr. High as a community center were $161,000, $48,000 of <br />