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January 2020
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Volume 55, Number 002
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Juan Seguin campus is sold efforts. So we are really grateful for everybody who worked on getting us to this place. We are really excited that we have now closed on the property, and for what lies ahead," said Elliot.
By Darren Dunn (Seguin) -- A local church hopes a big decision that it made to end 2019 will pay off big for the church and the community in 2020 and beyond. Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church has completed its purchase of the Seguin ISD's Juan Seguin campus. The district, earlier in the school year, decided to move forward with selling the vacant and aging building, located at 450 Dolle Street just west of the Seguin Police Station. The school was officially closed as a campus in 2010. It last served as the district's pre-k campus and was part of a list of properties that the district's facilities committee recommended should be put up for sale. The school district used a competitive sealed bid process to find a buyer for the school. Spirit of Joy's bid of $125,000 was accepted by the district in May of this year, and it has taken months for closing to occur. That process officially came to an end, with a closing on December 30.
Now that the ownership has officially been transferred over to Spirit of Joy, Elliot says there's a great deal work that still needs to be done. She says the church is eager to get started, but she knows it's going to take some time to get the renovations started. "Right now, Spirit of Joy is going to be working with architects and contractors, and getting construction plans put together. Our next couple of months is going to be working on getting all of the designs done, and all of the paperwork put together so that we can actually start doing some construction work," said Elliot.
Rev. Megan Elliot, pastor of Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, says the church conducted a feasibility study once the bid was accepted, and then started working with the Seguin ISD and the city of Seguin to get the deal closed. Both governmental entities had to be involved because there were some questions on the title about who owned various portions of the property. "It was certainly a complicated process to close on this property. There were a lot of title issues that needed to be worked out. You had two public entities -- the city (of Seguin) and the school district -- trying to come to agreement on the title issues. You had a bunch of people doing research. So
Members of Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church recently closed on the purchase of the Seguin ISD's Juan Seguin School. it really was a monumental effort to even get to the point of closing," said Elliot.
worked together to bring the sale to fruition.
The process wasn't easy, but Elliot says they are thankful that so many people
"We are incredibly grateful. There are a lot of people, who came in over the holidays.
There were people that put in extra hours. There were people that spent countless days and weeks working on this, and we would not have been able to close by the end of the year if it hadn't been for those
The church's initial plans call for renovtions to be made on some space that could be used by the church for worship, for classes and for other uses. Elliot says they are looking at two buildings initially that are believed to be in relatively good condition. "We are going to be focusing on the library and the auditorium on the west side of Dolle Street. We are going to be rehabbing those first, but we are also going to be focusing on the buildings on the east side to make sure that they are sealed and secure, so that they will not sustain any additional damage beyond what they already have. Our plan is to rehab the two buildings on the west side, first; and then work on getting community partners and grants and other funding sources to start working on the buildings on the east side," said Elliot. See SOLD, page 2