Galesburg City Council put the former Churchill Junior High building up for sale again on Monday night.
City Council once designated it as the site of a future community center, but now the council considers it too costly to develop and maintain.
Ward 4 Councilmember Dwight White and Ward 6’s Sarah Davis were opposed to the sale.
Bids for Churchill be unsealed and opened at the Nov. 6 Council meeting.
White says selling Churchill is premature because the Community Center Taskforce will not complete its work until December, and Churchill may be included in their recommendation.
White proposed deferring the bid process until December, but that motion was defeated by a 5-2 vote.
Ward 1 Alderman Bradley Hix says he doesn’t want to delay receiving bids because most of the council favors a $2.5 million cap on a community center and Churchill would cost significantly more.
Hix says some scaling back of plans for a community center may be necessary, but he doubts the majority will budge from $2.5 million.
Mayor Peter Schwartzman noted this is essentially a repeat of the sealed bid process that happened several months ago.
During that process, the council received a lone bid for $100 from The Wynkoop Group to develop a maker space.
Council rejected that bid because it didn’t recoup maintenance costs the city has spent, the plan had few details and the bidder said they have few financial resources to devote to the project.
There was later interest from developer Rob Benedict to buy the building but withdrew his offer when Alderman didn’t approve the sale on an expedited timeline.
Benedict says he does not approve of stipulations laid out in the bid process like a two-year guarantee for a project completion date, and after that time the city could back the property at 50 percent of what he paid.
