Dist. 26 fails to attract buyer for closed school

Cary Elementary District 26 has failed to attract any bidders for the shuttered Maplewood school in its second attempt to find a buyer.

Members of the district’s finance committee on Monday discussed the next steps for the building, which the district closed in 2010 to save about $6.6 million.

The district opened up the second round of bids for the school, a 15-acre site at 422 W. Krenz Ave., after receiving just one bid in the winter. In December, the school board rejected a bid from the Cary Park District, which offered $510,000 for the property.

A minimum price of $2.2 million was set for the second round of bidding.

Now school district officials will communicate with parties that received the latest bid packets to determine their level of interest and to find out how the bid process could be more attractive to potential developers, school board member Scott Coffey said.

“I think that for the commercial development folks, the homebuilders, there were concerns with the bid structure,” Coffey said. “We revised the bid process and made it extremely flexible for a potential buyer.”

Beyond contacting the five bid recipients, Coffey said, the district has a number of options, including listing the property on the commercial market through a broker or going out to bid for a third time.

Coffey said the school board would decide what to do next in the coming month.

The potential sale of Maplewood would affect capital projects in the district. About $2.2 million has been earmarked in the 2012 budget for projects such as replacing the roofs at two schools.

In addition, the district’s busing operations would need to be relocated from Maplewood, where the district currently houses its bus fleet, maintenance operations and transportation offices.