The North Little Rock School District will reduce the price of its Park Hill Elementary property by $1 million.
The elementary school on 3801 John F. Kennedy Blvd. was on the market for $2.5 million, but, after approval from the North Little Rock School Board on Thursday, the district is now asking for $1.5 million. The district's real estate agent thought that lowering the price would bring more interest to the property, said Superintendent Kelly Rodgers.
The School Board also gave the go-ahead for the district to request that North Little Rock include the elementary school grounds as part of the Park Hill Development Overlay. The district will send a letter detailing the request to North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith and the City Council, which will vote on the matter.
"This is a win-win because it gives us an opportunity to partner with the city," said School Board member Scott Teague.
The city is planning for a development overlay for the Park Hill neighborhood, stretching along JFK Boulevard between Skyline Drive and H Street, stopping just short of the elementary school. Local merchants are hoping the overlay, a plan that allows the city to pass added requirements and restriction for development in a specified area, will revitalize the stagnant area.
If the school grounds are rezoned, Teague said, the city and the buyer would be eligible for grants to help with revitalization. In the letter, the district will ask the city for assistance in finding a developer or buyer for the elementary school.
The elementary school dates back to 1924 and has had notable alumni, including Academy Award-winning actress Mary Steenburgen. The 40,360-square-foot building sits on a 5.27-acre lot.
Park Hill is one of three vacant properties the district has left because of a capital-improvement program that has reduced the district's 21 campuses to 13, nearly all of which were built anew or extensively remodeled.
The district does not want to keep vacant buildings because it could hamper its eligibility for state funding for new schools or additions in the coming years, officials have said. The Arkansas Department of Education's Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Division could decide that the district doesn't qualify for state aid for buildings or additions if the old schools are still available.
The district began selling off the vacant properties last year. In March 2015, the school board gave the OK to sell Argenta, Rose City, Lynch Drive and Baring Cross school buildings to Terra-Forma LLC of Maumelle for $500,000.
The company is remodeling the Argenta property, which will be anchored by technology firm Genesis Datacom, said Doug Meyer, who owns Terra-Forma with Dave Bruning. Baring Cross is now a child-care facility, and Rose City is leased out to the Pulaski County Special School District for adult education, Meyer said.
Terra-Forma is actively looking for tenants for the Lynch Drive property at 5800 Alpha St., he said.
The district sold Redwood Early Childhood Center last August to an entity of St. Anne Catholic Church, 6150 Remount Road in North Little Rock, for $175,000. Last month, it sold Amboy Elementary at 2400 W. 58th St. to Arkansas Soft Water, a water filtration company that is expanding.
Terra-Forma, a commercial development company, had offered $1 million for Park Hill last December in an effort to lease out the space. The company received high interest from a senior living center out of Dallas, but the center couldn't get the bids in Pulaski County and instead moved to Northwest Arkansas, Meyer said. The developers also showed the Park Hill property to a for-profit college, but the college would have to do extensive work to retrofit the building to include laboratories, Meyer said.
"We let the option expire," he said. "We didn't want to tie up the property. We just chose not for them to extend it because we didn't have any active deals."
Metro on 09/16/2016