May 8, 2008 8:07 pm US/Pacific
Tony Lopez Investigates: Empty School
ROSEVILLE (CBS13) ―
It's two o'clock in the afternoon; do you know where your kids are?
They're not at this Roseville school. In fact, nobody is. Even though Junction Elementary is a fully equipped, modern, brand new campus.
It's been sitting empty for nearly a year and a half.
"(This school) has been ready since December of '06" says Greg Van Dam.
You heard right, December of 2006. Months before that time, developers were under the gun to build this school and fast.
After all, homes in this area of Roseville, the Westpark development off Baseline and Fiddyment Road were selling faster than you can say "if you build it, they will come."
"We were selling homes like crazy and our biggest concern at that point was that we had the school completed in time, we were going to have so many kids out here," explains one developer.
Families who chose to move to WestPark didn't anticipate it either. Imagine living just steps away from this really nice school, and you still have to drive your kids somewhere else.
"I don't know it's kind of strange when the school is there and there are no kids around," says one local homeowner.
What's been a wrinkle for homeowners has turned into a rough road for developers.
On top of sagging sales and dwindling profits, came the added cost of paying for the upkeep on a school.
"(The school) runs between ten and twenty thousand a month," says the developer.
Ten to twenty thousand dollars a month to run faucets, flush toilets and as far as air and heat go, "the heating and cooling systems are on and running as if there are kids in the classrooms."
You see, they have to run the school as if it's in use to maintain the warranties and to make sure when it does open everything is working.
"This is fully supported by the developers," says Rick Pierlucci, Roseville School Superintendent.
But pushing these mops to clean up after no one, and running the air to keep things cool for the stacked up chairs, and the school district maintenance workers who could be making better use of their time working at a school that actually has students.
Well, this school finally will. Junction Elementary, a school built for 600 will open next fall with just over 200 students. The cost of taking care of it will out of developers hands and land squarely on the desk of the school district.
The kids we don't see yet will no doubt be very anxious to enter a place that's been empty for far too long, where a brand new world awaits.
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