School district closes on adjacent church property

By MITCH MAERSCH

Ozaukee Press staff

The Cedar Grove-Belgium School District’s purchase of First Evangelical Presbyterian Church has gone through.

Supt. Chad Brakke said the sale was finalized last Friday for $70,000 plus closing costs.

Electors in the district and the School Board approved allowing the district to buy the property.

The district has agreed to allow the church to continue to meet through May, when it will close.

The church is next to the district’s elementary and middle schools and could be used to house the district’s new charter school, the Rocket Academy.

“My goal would be to have next month’s Governance Board meeting there,” Supt. Chad Brakke told the academy’s Board of Governance on Jan. 26.

Bray Architects were scheduled to examine the building this week to determine what the district needs to do to bring it up to code, Brakke said.

Officials expect the 100-year-old building to contain asbestos.

The two-acre lot opens options for the district, which is doing work from a $21.5 million referendum approved last spring. The property could be used to expand the elementary school playground, or options for bus looping and water retention, Brakke said.