Wake School Board Drops Deal for Apex Land

The school board made the decision partly because of current tense relations with the county Board of Commissioners regarding the system's budget, school board member Patti Head said.

In April 2006, an investor group called Apex Olive LLC had paid less than half of the $8.7 million the school system agreed in February to pay for the land south of Hume Olive Road, near the intersection of Evans Road.

The profit that Apex Olive stood to make had raised the county commissioners' eyebrows. Apex Olive said in February that it had done engineering work for a possible subdivision before the school deal arose and that land prices in western Wake County rise rapidly.

Water and sewer service would have reached the land by the time the schools needed it, so the value would have risen, Head said Tuesday. The current appraisal put the land value below the purchase price, however.

The site would have been used for a high school, middle school and either a transportation center or an elementary school, according to district plans. The system is still looking for land in the Apex area for those facilities.

The commissioners agreed Monday to give the schools $300 million for the coming fiscal year, $6 million more than the county manager recommended and $5 million less than the schools asked.