The Pine City School District, along with Hinckley-Finlayson and East Central, has entered into an agreement to purchase the old Chris’ Foods building in Pine City.
The building will be a permanent home for the Vision Program, costing the three districts $710,000.
The special education program serves students in grades K-12 with intense social, emotional, or behavioral needs.
Vision was previously housed in the Pine Plaza; however, the building is no longer available to the program starting in July.
According to the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), the cost will be split by the three districts based on their Weighted Average Daily Membership or how many students each district has. The breakdown in the MOA has Pine City paying $343,853.00, Hinckley-Finlayson paying $206,255.00, and East Central paying 159,892.00.
The total project is expected to cost around $4 million. Pine City Superintendent Dr. Curt Tryggestad said that they will not spend any more than they need to complete the project.
"It needs to be utilitarian and meet our needs, but it is not going to be fancy."
Dr. Tryggestad says the tax impact will be minimal, just over a dollar a month for a home worth $100,000.
"We believe it's a good use of the money," Tryggestad told WCMP. "We were renting and spending a pretty fair chunk of change on that area we had before. It's going to be a great change for the kids that need that program."
The sale is set to close at the end of this month.
The Vision Program will spend the next year renting the former Fairview building while renovations are done. They hope to move into the new location in January of 2022.
