John McGrew’s plans to battle childhood obesity, diabetes and overall youth inactivity by creating a $25 million wellness campus at what one day could become a major highway interchange in southeastern Lawrence will need to find a new home.

Members of the Lawrence school board agreed Monday that McGrew’s preferred site — a rural patch that would include some of the 75 acres the Lawrence school district bought last year for future use — represented the wrong place at the wrong time for what could actually be a fine idea.

Kids certainly need places to play, learn and appreciate what nature has to offer, board members said, but not on a site that cost taxpayers $1.7 million and spurred visions of a future high school, another elementary school or perhaps an increasingly valuable investment property that could pay off years down the road.

Clearing a path for a 10-acre pond and a mile-long walking trail — followed by the potential for a ballfield designed for youths with disabilities, a gymnasium and indoor wellness center and parking lots — just doesn’t fit the district’s mission or needs, they said.

“As a district, we’re not really in the business of parkland,” said Rich Minder, board president.

McGrew had brought his concept to the school board, hoping to build on the limited support he’d already received from Lawrence and Douglas County commissioners. Those elected officials, at least, had left open the possibility of discussing the idea further; county commissioners said they would be encouraged to be “part of the conversation.”

Monday’s discussion ended talk of using the district property at the southeastern edge of Lawrence, near where the not-yet-built eastern leg of the South Lawrence Trafficway would connect with the existing Kansas Highway 10. McGrew dismisses other public sites as unworkable, typically because they’re too small or otherwise limited by floodplain restrictions.

But he’s not giving up hope.

“I’m surprised that they’re not even willing to talk about it,” said McGrew, who plans to continue working to add butterfly gardens at Lawrence schools. “But this doesn’t mean they won’t want to talk about it next year, or the year after that.”