The District 205 School Board has thus far been unable to sell the former Nielson Elementary School and opted to relist the property last night with no minimum.
The board had approved two resolutions to sell the former school previously, first setting a minimum price of $826,740 in September and then lowering it to $735,000 in October.
The board discussed lowering the minimum again and re-listing it, to which board member Maury Lyon objected to at first.
“I think we should just it the same and see what happens,” Lyon said at Monday night’s meeting. “If someone wants to talk to us about a lower price, then maybe we need to act. But, if we just keep lowering it the message, I think, is dangerous.”
Minimum bids are required for the district to list the property with a realtor, which the board has not done. District Attorney Luke Feeney suggested eliminating the minimum and if the bids come in lower than what the board wanted, then reject them.
“The process is exactly the same. You receive bids [and] if you’re not happy with them, you can reject all bids.”
Superintendent Dr. John Asplund shared his thoughts with board members, echoing much of what Feeney said. He did caution about the no-minimum path.
“The positive side to going to no minimum is as Luke said. The negative side of that is that people might go through a lot of due diligence and then we reject all bids and then you might take people away for [the future.] So, that’s the peril. But, at the same time, to get the ball rolling I don’t think it’s a bad path going forward.”
Board members agreed, eliminating the minimum bid amount for the property. Additionally, the board agreed to extend the bidding window with the holidays coming up, setting the bid opening day for Wednesday, January 26.
Nielson was among the school properties closed during the district-wide building renovation project.
