For 15 of those years, his wife worked at Aycock in food service. His daughter-in-law taught there for more than 20 years.

A Charlotte-based operator of group homes for abused and troubled children made a $1.5-million bid on the property this month, but failed to get the financing. He’s still interested in the property, school officials say, and could come back with another offer.

With that in mind, Price doesn’t like what he sees.

“We love children, but that sort of thing, right here in our neighborhood, I don’t think so,” Price said Monday. “We’ve got a good neighborhood, no problems. And I don’t want any now.”

Price’s sentiments are echoed in several homes throughout this working-class neighborhood near the intersection of Ridge Avenue and Centergrove Road.

Most residents interviewed this week said they hadn’t heard that Murray Adolescent Training and Treatment Academy put down a $75,000 deposit on the property on Nov. 8.

A Christian school had previously looked at the property, and the U.S. Postal Service put in a lower bid.

But residents quickly formed opinions about the possible new neighbor.

Many of the residents here are elderly and say they just don’t want to face the possibility that their lives could be disrupted and their safety put at risk by an influx of children with problems.

“The school never did bother us, all those little folks in and out,”said Marvin Cook, 87. “But somebody in there all the time, that’d be different.”

Cook and his 91-year-old wife, Eva, live on Lincoln Street, which runs off Ridge beside the school. If he could vote on the proposed use, Cook said, “I’d vote against it.”

But Cook doesn’t get a vote. And Isaac L. Murray, CEO of the company, could come before the school board again and make an offer to buy the property.

Murray, who serves 55 youths in Charlotte and Concord group homes, said he’s made arrangements to get the money, though he hadn’t contacted school system officials Tuesday.

He also says that, though they haven’t yet heard from him either, the residents near Aycock have nothing to fear from the 75 youths he figures the building can house.

The N.C. Division of Facility Services licenses Murray’s operations as residential treatment facilities for children with emotional and behavioral disorders, said Nick Rose, a supervisor in the agency’s Asheville office.

Rose said the agency has received a number of complaints about Murray’s operations in the past year, but that none of the homes is under any sanctions.

The youths who would stay at the residential, educational and treatment facility would be mostly abused children who need help but don’t need to be under lock and key, Murray said.

“These are children who have, for no reason, been subject to physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional abuse by adults,”he said. “These kids don’t require security measures. They would not be in an environment of this nature if they posed a threat to the community.”

Murray said he plans to hold a community meeting once he closes on the property — which won’t take place until after an upset bid process — to inform neighbors of his plans and answer their questions.

“We would like to interface with the community and find out what their concerns are and address those concerns during the formative stages,” he said.

That’s good enough for some. William Henry, whose parents taught at Aycock, owns a rental house next door to the school and lives just up the street himself.

“It’s fine with me,” he said, taking a break from doing maintenance on his rental house. “I understand that kids like that need help, and they’ve got to have a place to go ... and hopefully get their lives straightened out.”

While other neighbors agree with that concept in principle, they aren’t ready to believe their potential new neighbors won’t detract from their own quality of life.

Jeff Power, who lives with his wife and 2-year-old daughter on Lincoln Street and is expecting a new addition to his family, is one of those neighbors.