Photo by Eric Keith / St. Joseph News-Press / Purchase this photo

Central High School students make a dash for their cars at the end of the first day of school Monday. For Terry Weeden, who lives in a home surrounded by student parking, school means an end to quiet summer days. The school district may buy all but one of the remaining properties to further expand the Central parking lot, Ms. Weeden’s included.

First there were 10 houses in the 2500 block of Charles and Sylvanie streets.

Now there are four.

Soon there will be one.

Monday evening, the St. Joseph Board of Education gave district staff permission to purchase three of the remaining four houses as well as an empty lot that sit in a block across the street from Central High School. The move is part of an effort to ease the mess that is Central student parking.

Throughout the past several years, the district has purchased half of the 10 houses in the block. The district replaced the houses with gravel parking lots.

Today, the remaining four houses alternate with gravel lots throughout the block. If the district purchases the three houses and one empty lot that the owners have offered to sell, just one home will remain on the block. The district plans to turn the block into a paved parking lot.

The house that Terry Weeden owns at 2411 Sylvanie St. was surrounded by students’ cars Monday — the first day of the school year.

“I’m right in the middle of the whole project here,” she said while standing on her back porch.

Her neighbors on both sides and across the alley are gravel parking lots. After about three months of peace, the lots were filled with cars Monday.

“It is very noisy out here. They use this alley back here like a speedway,” she said. “And then they do little circles in the lot over here to the left and throw rocks at the house.”

Due to her less-than-ideal situation, she asked the school district to buy her house and the empty lot she owns on the east side of her house, 2415 Sylvanie St. She’s happy with the district’s $77,500 offer for the house and lot.

She’s still not sure where she’ll move.

“I want to live somewhere less hectic, less noisy and less dusty. And somewhere where kids aren’t throwing their trash in my yard,” she said.

In addition to Ms. Weeden’s two properties, the district intends to buy Tim Conard’s house at 2404 Charles St. for $45,000 and Gil Stewart’s house at 2416 Charles St. for $45,000.

Although the purchasing of houses adds up to an expensive parking lot, district officials say it’s worth the cost. As Central’s enrollment has increased to more than 1,600 students and the number of driving teenagers also has increased, the school’s neighbors have grown increasingly upset. And students have increasingly struggled to find a place to park.

“We have a problem there,” Steve Huff, the district’s assistant to the superintendent, said during a board committee meeting Thursday.

By spring, a new parking lot could take another 150 to 175 cars off the street.

The owner of the one house set to remain plans on living among a parking lot. Cecil Green, an elderly man, has lived in the white house at the corner of Sylvanie and 25th streets for more than 30 years.

“The school doesn’t bother me. I’m staying,” Mr. Green said.

Nancy Hull can be reached at

nancyhull@npgco.com