Published November 07, 2009 12:30 am - The Buckeye Local Schools Board of Education’s effort to auction off the former Pierpont Elementary building failed to attract any qualified bidders Friday.
No qualified bidder for old Pierpont Elementary School
By CARL E. FEATHER - Staff Writer - cfeather@starbeacon.com Star Beacon
ASHTABULA TOWNSHIP — The Buckeye Local Schools Board of Education’s effort to auction off the former Pierpont Elementary building failed to attract any qualified bidders Friday.
The auction was held noon Friday in the Board Meeting Room at Braden Junior High School. Two spectators and one potential bidder showed up for the auction. However, when the bidder could not produce a 10-percent deposit as stipulated by the terms of the auction, Superintendent Nancy Williams declared that the auction would not be held for a lack of qualified bidders.
Williams delayed the start of the auction by 15 minutes to make sure no potential bidders went to the building in Pierpont by mistake.
The board closed the building at the end of the 2008-09 school year and voted to offer it at an auction. Pierpont Township trustees expressed an interest in the bus garage, and the district split off that section of the property. Williams said that sale should be completed this month.
Williams said the board will have to discuss its course of action at the next meeting, Nov. 17. She said now that the board’s attempt to sell at an auction was unsuccessful, it can receive private bids or place the property in the hands of a real-estate agency.
Williams said she received two calls from people who showed an interest in the building after the auction was advertised in area newspapers. She planned to call them just in case they would have an interest in placing a private offer with the board.
She said there has not been any interest from nonprofit groups to purchase the building, which dates from the 1930s.
The district was holding off on winterizing the structure to first see whether it sold at auction. Williams said the director of operations will start that process now that no bidders came forward.
An appraisal of the property set the value at $165,000, which is where the bidding would have started on Friday. She said board members can discuss the matter and come up with a figure that they feel is a realistic price and use that as a benchmark when entertaining offers.
“The appraisal we had done was not a full-blown commercial appraisal,” she said. “They did not spend days and days, looking through the building.”
The last time the district sold a building was in the spring of 2006, when it sold the former Lincoln Elementary building in Ashtabula Township for $270,000. An auction was held for the school in the fall of 2005 but failed to grab any bidders at the $363,230 market value. The transaction was eventually completed as a private sale. Williams said that sale was quite complex, however, because there were green space and zoning regulations associated with the transaction.
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