Connie Hayes, Superintendent of Northeast Metro 916 Intermediate School District, brought the 916 proposal for governance of Crosswinds to the EMID Board at last night’s meeting. She had visited the building this month and found:

The design of Crosswinds is very unique and interesting. It seems to be a great design for the program for which it was initially intended. The design does, however, create some significant challenges for the population which we would bring to the school.

In fact, she went on to describe that in order to use the building 916 would essentially have to gut the interior and build a much more traditional facility inside the shell of Crosswinds. In fact, 916 really can’t use more than half the space and would have to seek a partner to use the other half of the building. They even considered building a separate building in the Crosswinds “backyard” but found that building on the wetlands is likely prohibited.

Hayes made if very clear that 916 had no intention of maintaining any of Crosswinds’ program. Their only interest is in the building, and even that interest is contingent on the feasibility of renovating the interior. A study to determine that feasibility would likely take a while, so they also were not really interested in taking over the building until 2014.