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South of Oxford, off U.S. Route 27, behind the tree-line just past Indian Ridge Apartments, is Erik Farm-the new location for Talawanda High School.
Since the $4.7 million bond issue passed 52 percent to 48 percent in November's general election, Talawanda School District staff has been finalizing plans to begin construction for the new high school.
Holli Morrish, Talawanda School District's community relations coordinator, said the school district looked everywhere for available land and talked to multiple property owners about constructing the high school on their properties.
But it was Leonard Erik, owner of the Erik Farm, who approached the school board with an extremely reasonable rate, Morrish said.
"Sometimes we were looking at a price … that was around $20,000 or $30,000 per acre," Morrish said. "We are buying the Erik property for $8,500 per acre."
Morrish said the Erik family had a family vision that, someday, their farm would be the site of a new high school.
"This is our opportunity to bring Mr. Erik and his wife's dream and vision to reality," Morrish said.
However, the property's location outside of Oxford's city limits means construction processes do not have to be approved by Oxford City Council, nor does Oxford have to tend to emergency services of the property either, according to Morrish.
"There have been discussions between the Talawanda School District and the City of Oxford of possible annexation of the property into the city limits so emergency and other city services could be available to the site," Morrish said.
On Nov. 21, Superintendent Phil Cagwin met with the architect and construction manager to begin discussions of the time frame for completion of the school.
Because the typical construction time for a high school the size of Talawanda's to be built would be about three years, Cagwin said they hope to beat that time frame and not have to wait to move their students until January of 2012.
"Without compromising the quality of construction and the opportunity for community and faculty input into the design of the building, we are looking for ways to compact the time frame so we can open the building in the late summer or early fall of 2011," Cagwin said.
According to Assistant Superintendent Kelly Spivey, planning and design committees will meet in early January.
Spivey said the committees will consist of faculty, administration, community members and the architects of the project.
The first committee meeting in January will allow those who attend to share their input of what they would like to see in the new building. At the end of January, the committee will discuss more plans regarding design.
Morrish said that the benefits to building and designing a new school on the Erik Farm include the existing water-sewer access on the land, as well as an optimal drainage system. But according to Morrish, the draining and piping are not the only attractive features of the property.
"There is an area on the site that has a natural wetlands area and our goal would be to turn that into an outdoor science lab," Morrish said. "There is also adequate space for parking and we are limited on space and parking at the current high school."
Cagwin said the entire construction investment will also provide long-term benefits to the entire community.
"I have heard over the years that candidates for positions at Miami (University) have looked at our old school buildings and decided to either turn down the job offer, or simply live in a neighboring community and commute to work at Miami," Cagwin said. "I hope that the new high school will reverse that decision."
