Vacant LR campus to be sold for $75,000

The Little Rock School District is selling its long unused Badgett School campus to Ben Davis of Little Rock for $75,000.

Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key, who acts as the school board for the state-controlled district, has approved a resolution authorizing the sale, Kelsey Bailey, the district's chief financial officer, said this week.

The Badgett building is at 6900 Pecan Ave., near Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field.

The campus, originally acquired by the Little Rock School District in the late 1980s from the Pulaski County Special School District, has been on the market for three years, said Stuart Mackey of Coldwell Banker Commercial /Hathaway Group, the district's real estate agent.

The sale comes at a time when the Little Rock district is planning to close three additional schools and is considering offers for the sale or use of two of them -- Franklin Elementary and Woodruff Early Childhood Center -- by outside organizations. Additionally, the district has on the market the long-vacant Garland Elementary School.

The Badgett campus has not been used as a Little Rock district school of any kind since December 2012, when Felder Middle School Learning Academy that was housed there was moved across town to Hamilton Learning Academy.

The Felder program was an alternative campus for middle-school students who were unsuccessful in their regular schools.

Earlier, Felder Academy had been a conversion charter school at the Badgett campus -- a joint project of the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special districts. The conversion charter school featured a military-style program for students in grades six through 12 who were being adjudicated in the juvenile-justice system or had serious behavior problems in traditional schools.

The Pulaski County Special district, a partner in the charter school since 2004-05, withdrew participation in 2008-09 and North Little Rock district later did the same. The Little Rock district surrendered the state charter in April 2011.

The last time Badgett was used as a regular elementary school was in 2001-02. It was closed after that in a round of budget cuts. It was quickly called back into use as a temporary location for Wakefield Elementary students when a June 2002 fire partially destroyed Wakefield and that school was rebuilt.

Metro on 04/13/2017

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