ORANGE : Firm Hired to Study 3 Driving Range Bids

The Orange Unified School District has hired an Irvine-based company to evaluate the bids of three sports companies vying to build a recreation complex at Peralta Junior High School, which was closed in 1985.

District trustees voted to pay $5,000 to Project Dimensions Inc. for a thorough review of the financial health of the three firms and their plans to build a golf driving range on the 22-acre site. The development companies are Super Sports of Manhattan Beach and USA Golf Centers and MGA Associates, both of Newport Beach.

But some on the five-member board remain concerned about how much revenue the district can expect to get from the school property, which was appraised at $6.1 million in 1991.

“I’m not against developing the project, but I need more information,” Trustee Bob Viviano said. “We have to look before we leap.”

The three companies seeking to develop the former junior high school, which is in the 2100 block of Canal Street, have offered the district minimum payments ranging from $120,000 to $140,000 a year for each of the 15 years the district is proposing to lease the land.

But payments would increase on a sliding scale as profits from the recreation center rise, school district planner Frank Remkiewicz said. By the ninth or 10th year, he predicted, the lease contract could be generating as much as $750,000 annually.

Trustees do not want to sell the Peralta property, lest student enrollment increases make another school necessary in the future.

Viviano said he is not convinced that the three bidders vying to develop the site are offering the district enough guaranteed revenue.

“The board needs to establish a minimum threshold for acceptable bids,” he said. “We need a sufficient return on our assets. We are dealing with public property, and we have to handle it in a prudent fashion.”

“If we don’t get a sufficient return on our asset, we’ll face criticism that we gave the property away,” Viviano added.

But area residents are eager for a speedy resolution to the Peralta school project.

At a Feb. 11 school board meeting, at least 40 people urged trustees to make a decision quickly, saying that transients living on the former school grounds are making their neighborhood unsafe.

“It’s an eyesore, and it’s causing our property values to go down,” complained area resident Howard Chassagne.