For almost five years the Columbus Municipal School District has attempted to sell its 96,350-square-foot Lee Middle School property. Thursday, it decided to take a new route in dealing with the abandoned building, hoping to create an opportunity for tax-revenue that will benefit both the district and the city of Columbus.
During an executive session portion of the Board of Trustees’ Thursday morning meeting, the district agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding between the school district and the Columbus Redevelopment Authority (CRA). Under the agreement, the district will not pursue any potential buyers or interested parties for nine months while the group looks to evaluate and prepare the property for purchase.
“It’s still on the market…this is just an agreement to see if it has any value,” CMSD Board President Angela Verdell said. It’s hoped that the CRA’s work on the property will make it attractive for a successful commercial business that will generate tax dollars for the benefit of both the city and the school district, she added.
The building, which sits on a 14-acre lot, was built in 1954 and has major asbestos issues — which the Authority will have an updated, extensive study done on, according to CRA president John Acker.
Buildings with asbestos or other chemical properties require careful, strategic removal, even if the building is to be demolished — which both parties said they assume will likely be the case with the school.
Joe Dillon, public information officer for the City of Columbus, said the city supports the agreement and said the CRA will likely pursue a United States Environmental Protection Agency Brownsfield Grant that would provide a tax credit to the group of two-and-a-half times any amount spent for the removal of hazardous materials on the property.
“The government (can’t apply for that grant), the city can’t,” he pointed out.
He said the city currently has no interest in the building, but simply wants it to be filled.
“The city just wants it on the tax roll,” he said. “It would benefit everybody.”
The group will also conduct an appraisal on the lot of the property itself– as if the building were demolished — and figure out costs for a potential demolition. They plan to place all of their findings in a package for potential purchasers, and plan to conduct further studies on the property as to what potential entities might work best there.
While Verdell said the district has had both such studies conducted in the past, she said they were never conclusive and that the CRA plans more intensive studies. Aside from that, she said, any interested party will want such up-to-date information .
“We were just never in the business of development,” Verdell, said of the board’s previous attempts with the building. “We’re in the business of being educators.”
This will be the first large project, and the second overall project the CRA will act on after the group was created by the city in 2014 to target blighted properties throughout Columbus. It continues work on the first project, developing the five blocks adjacent to Burns Bottom Soccer Complex downtown.
Acker — who called the Burns Bottom project “a little more complicated,” with about 60 landowners in comparison to Lee, which is one by a single entity — said the CRA is currently only pursuing the two projects, but that they’re open to other ideas as well.
“We’re always looking around,” he said.
The committee is able to acquire and sell property, rehabilitate and improve structures, pursue public-private partnerships, demolish buildings that can’t be rehabilitated, consolidate titles and acquire and distribute funds and grants. They received $55,000 from the city this past year for their efforts, much of which will go towards the Lee project, according to Acker. He said asbestos studies alone can run anywhere from $5,000, for less intricate studies, to $20,000, for more involved studies — including climbing into ceilings to evaluate asbestos or removing walls.
“This is a perfect project for us,” Acker said, adding the tax revenue the group hopes will eventually come from a commercial entity purchasing the property will benefit the city and the school system.
He said any prospective project has to have all the components to make it a right fit for the group. Lee fits that criteria, he said.
“It’s gotta be right, it’s gotta be good for the city of Columbus.”
Verdell said that while it’s possible someone could come forward wanting to purchase the property during the intervening nine-month waiting period, the board would have board attorney David Dunn deal with such an issue at that time.
“We would be bound by our MOU,” she said. “We’re both city entities that have mutually agreed to this, so we would not be considering (proposals from outside entities during the nine-month period).”
Sam Luvisi is news editor and covers education for The Dispatch.
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