The North Little Rock School Board on Tuesday approved the listing for sale of three campuses that are either unused now or will be unused at the end of this school year.
Newmark Grubb Arkansas is the the district's real estate company and will be paid 6 percent of the sale contract for each property. Adam Jenkins, senior associate and director of Newmark Grubb Arkansas, is the agent working with the district.
The campuses for sale, their addresses and the selling prices are:
• Amboy Elementary, 2400 W. 58th St., $1.25 million.
• Pine Street Elementary, 1900 Pine St., $290,000.
• Redwood Early Childhood Center, 401 N. Redwood St., $37,000.
The listing of the three properties comes just after the North Little Rock School Board on March 31 voted to sell Argenta, Rose City, Lynch Drive and Baring Cross school buildings to Terra-Forma LLC of Maumelle for $500,000.
The 9,000-student North Little Rock School District is in the midst of a capital-improvement program that is reducing what were 21 schools to 13, nearly all of which are being built new or extensively remodeled.
As a result of the building program, the district has several schools that are no longer being used as traditional school buildings.
Maintaining the unused schools is an expense to the district, and keeping the buildings could hinder the district's ability to qualify for state funding for new schools and additions in the future. School district leaders have said the state Department of Education's Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Division could determine that the district doesn't need funding for new buildings if old schools are still available.
While the district is listing Amboy, Pine Street and Redwood for sale, it already has approved the demolition of the three campuses and five others if sales are not forthcoming.
District leaders are opposed to allowing the vacant campuses to be sold for use as schools -- such as independently operated public charter schools -- that would compete with the North Little Rock district for students.
The district included in the sale contract of the properties in March a restrictive clause that says the buyer has to agree that the property cannot be used, leased or developed for a user who is in competition with the district.
Superintendent Kelly Rodgers said Tuesday that a similar restrictive clause will be part of any sale contracts for the Redwood, Pine Street and Amboy properties.
The acquisition of former traditional schools by charter school organizations is an issue elsewhere in the state and has been addressed in state law.
Arkansas Code Annotated 6-23-501 says that an open-enrollment charter school shall have a right of first refusal to purchase or lease for fair market value a closed public school facility or unused portions of public school facilities in a public school district from which it draws students if the public district decides to sell or lease a school.
The statute also says that a public school district is exempt from the statute if the school district through an open-bid process receives and accepts an offer to lease or purchase the property from a purchaser other than an open-enrollment charter school for an amount that exceeds the fair market value.
Metro on 04/29/2015