Seeing low bids, NLR board shelves school-property offers

The North Little Rock School Board on Tuesday tabled all property offers in hopes of getting better bids.

The district is selling 10 properties that are currently or will be vacant. The properties are listed at their appraised values, but none of the offers came in at that amount, let alone half that, according to district documents.

The sales are part of a capital improvement plan to reduce the number of schools in the district from 21 to 13, with mostly new buildings and extensive remodeling. The district is looking to start the second phase of the plan, which includes the completion of Glenview Elementary; renovations to Ridgeroad Middle School and Crestwood, Seventh Street and Indian Hills elementary schools; and a part of the North Little Rock High School project.

"We were good stewards with the taxpayers' money when we were acquiring properties," School Board President Scott Miller said, adding that he was concerned that the offers weren't even 10 percent or 20 percent of the appraised value of the properties. "That's difficult for me to take back to the citizens of North Little Rock."

Of the 10 properties, the district has sold one -- Belwood Elementary School -- to RH Ghan Properties in Fort Smith for $450,000, but Lighthouse Academies has planned to have its new charter school in the building.

Adam Jenkins -- with Newmark Grubb Arkansas, the real estate company handling the district's property sales -- told the board that he was researching noncompeting clauses for the sales and how long the district can reasonably restrict the use of the building from the new property owners.

School Board officials are worried that any additional charter schools will take away from the district's student base, meaning less state money for the district. They're also facing "district financial issues" in the 2017-18 school year, mostly because of bond payments, Miller said.

Last week, the School Board approved the sale of $65,465,000 in construction bonds to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which submitted the lowest of the four bids made on the bonds. The bond money will also help to fund the second phase of the construction projects.

The district has received offers for four properties -- Argenta Academy and Rose City, Baring Cross and Lynch Drive elementary schools.

One company, Terra Forma, has made offers on all four properties. It is currently the only company to make an offer for Rose City Elementary School, at $93,546. The school is listed at $350,000, district documents show.

School Board member Ron Treat said that while he understood the properties might be hard to sell because of the buildings' condition or the uses, he was still concerned that the properties haven't garnered more responses.

The board is considering "the economics" of razing some of its vacant properties, School Board member Scott Teague said. But even so, he said, demolishing the four elementary schools would cost about $500,000 altogether, which is the amount of the current offers on the table.

The state could also give the district less funding for facilities if it keeps a vacant property, he said.

"What is the likelihood that every one of these would turn into a charter school? Do we feel comfortable with the buildings that we're building ... that we could just compete?" Teague asked. "At the end of the day, we still want to move in a very quick and efficient manner. We're still wanting to plow forward."

Metro on 01/28/2015

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