A land swap approved Monday by the Niles Township board opens up a plethora of possibilities for the involved entities.

Township Supervisor Jim Stover said the property exchange “just made sense” and will benefit owners of the properties commonly known as Independence Park, located next to the entrance of Brandywine High School on Bell Road, and the Old Bell School, located at 320 Bell Road.

“There was a school on the property that Brandywine owned for some years, and years ago it burned down. It’s been vacant ever since,” Stover said. “The property by the high school that the township owned was bought and used as a park over the years since 1976 or ’76, but the school system has been the primary user of it.”

Stover said the council investigated the possibility of swapping ownership of the properties and learned from appraisals that the land had nearly the same value.

Although there are no definitive plans for either piece of land, officials said the property exchanges opens a number of opportunities that have been in the works for some time now, but have been difficult to execute due to the ownership of the land.

“Many years ago the haunted house was in what was known as the Old Bell School. Then they built a building near the back of the property,” Stover said, adding that the council has no intentions of terminating the agreement with the Niles Haunted House.

“That (land) could possibly be used as a trailhead for the Michigan River Valley Linear Trail. It more than likely will be used for recreation efforts in the years to come, whether it’s an ice skaing rink, whether it’s a tots park,” he said.

The parcel owned previously by Niles Township has been used for athletic purposes by Brandywine Schools at no cost to the school district. The land holds the school district’s softball field, which is the primary use of the park.

“(The exchange) makes people feel a lot more comfortable about making improvements to that land because it’s ours now,” said Vance Stratton, Brandywine’s athletic director.

Stratton said one of the possibilities includes relocating the school’s baseball field that currently sits behind the football field on the far side of the school’s property. “We’d have baseball and softball right there together. These are things people are interested in, but were concerned about ever being able to do,” he said. “It just makes a lot of sense. It’s something we should have done a long time ago.”