The Argyle ISD Board of Trustees unanimously approved the authorization to purchase of 50 acres of land along Hwy 377 north of Argyle Middle School for a new campus in the future.
It will be located within Block A of the White Rock Farm Addition.
Despite concerns from the community in regard to traffic and access along Hwy 377 and East Harpole Road, the board said this purchase, like all land purchases, was well thought out and still has time for improvements before construction.
“The challenge with this site is the access, there’s no doubt about it,” said board member Josh Westrom. “There will have to be lots of consideration on how to approve that. I agree it would not be able to develop with another school with the current road infrastructure and I would expect that to change.”
Argyle ISD hasn’t released information on what size campus they plan to put in at the newly-purchased lot, but the board members showed a sense of urgency in buying land for growth while it’s available.
“We’ve been pretty transparent that we need to go out and get more land,” said Westrom. “Everybody has agreed that it’s a priority as the district grows and the voters have blessed us with the resources to go acquire that land.”
In 2023, the district purchased 50 acres on FM 407, where the new middle school and elementary school are currently under construction.
The district also purchased 35 acres in Furst Ranch in 2024, which was complemented with a 15-acre donation, giving Argyle ISD a total of 50 acres for future schools.
On Nov. 3, the district announced it had closed on 128 acres in Northlake for a secondary campus. Northlake Mayor Brian Montini expressed his concerns with the location not aligning with the town’s Comprehensive Plan.
The pushback is something Argyle ISD has become accustomed to in the land-buying process. If not from a mayor, it’s from residents.
“When we closed on FM 407, the people didn’t want us there and when we closed on the 128 acres in Northlake, we’ve heard that we’re not wanted there, either,” said Westrom. “I want the community to know that there is a lot of time spent on where to buy land and where to situate schools.”
However, multiple board members expressed the fact that it has been hard to find large parcels of land in Argyle that have good roads, utilities and property owners willing to sell to a school district.
According to board member Matt Slaton, since he joined the board in 2022, there have been multiple properties Argyle ISD has tried to buy, but bigger developers price them out.
“When I came on the board, we had one piece of land, and it wasn’t for lack of effort,” he said. “We tried to buy land, but every time we tried to buy a large enough parcel of land in Argyle, [a] developer would come in and offer 20% more. We had two or three properties pulled right out from underneath us because of that.”
Westrom also sympathized with residents that brought up traffic concerns in Argyle, especially with another school possibly going in along Hwy 377. However, he said it’s difficult to please anyone when there are so many restricting factors when buying land.
“People think the FM 407 site is a bad location because it is too congested, but then they think roads like Sam Davis and Harpole are not suitable for schools because they’re too rural and underdeveloped,” said Westrom. “So, we have [farm to market] roads that people don’t want built on and we have rural roads people don’t want us to build on. Well, those are the two types of roads we have, so we have to build somewhere.”
He hoped residents would recognize that busy roads near schools means crowded schools.
“Those roads are congested because there are a lot of kids in those cars,” said Westrom. “And if you think those roads are congested, you should naturally think that our hallways are likewise congested.”
Another option Westrom discussed was the purchase of large parcels of land around the I-35W corridor, but said the district wouldn’t want to take away tax revenue from the town.
“We don’t want to take 50 or 100 acres off the commercial tax rolls because once you put a school on a big commercial tract, you lose the commercial tax revenue for not only the town, but the district, too,” he said.
