WICHITA, Kansas -- USD 259 is turning to the auction block to save some money.
They want to know who might be interested in buying Booth Elementary School to help the district cover the cost of maintaining several more school properties that closed last month.
"We have vandalism issues, and the up keep so we decided that's probably what drew us to Booth," explains the district's chief operations officer Denise Wren.
After acquiring five more properties last month that are no longer inhabited by students or staff, USD 259 had decisions to make.
How many properties could they pay to maintain?
"We want to be good neighbors, we don't want these to go into disaray," says Wren.
So Booth Elementary is going up for auction July 31.
"It's kind of a test run for us, we're gonna see how Booth goes and then if that's a successful endeavor we will look at potentially doing that with some of our other vacant sites," says Wren.
Built in 1954 Booth Elementary actually closed in 2003.
It served as storage space for the district since then and now it's about to start a new chapter.
The 2.5 acres are zoned as single family residential."
"There may be some nervousness in the neighborhood, we've talked with the homeowners association and been very open with what we're doing and the fact we do have the right to reject is something we'll be watching very carefully but we felt it was important to be proactive, put this out there and see what interest we could get," explains Wren.
The district is selling the property to save money, rather than make money.
Any money left over from the sale would go back into their maintenance fund.
In addition to the schools that closed last month, Lewis, Emerson, Bryant, Lincoln and Mueller, the district also owns the vacant former Price Elementary and Longfellow Elementary schools.
