FORT WALTON BEACH — The old Ocean City Elementary School property is on the market.
The Okaloosa County School Board decided Monday to start accepting bids for the 10.72-acre property and 65,152-square-foot building at 720 Essex Road.
View the zoning information for the property »
The board didn’t discuss the issue at Monday’s meeting, but did talk about the potential sale at a workshop last week.
The school district spent about $70,000 on utilities and routine maintenance at the property last year, and likely will spend between $55,000 and $70,000 this year, according to Rita Scallan, the school district’s chief financial officer.
The roof also needs to be replaced, which likely would cost another million dollars, according to Bill Smith, the district’s facilities director.
“It’s expensive just to own it,” Smith said of the school.
“Selling assets is probably a pretty poor solution to our budgetary problems now,” said Dewey Destin, the newest School Board member. “Is this an asset that we’re absolutely certain we’ll never use?”
Ocean City is one of nine elementary school facilities in the Fort Walton Beach area. It was built in the mid-1960s and was closed in the summer of 2008 because of declining enrollment.
“If you look at the demographics, I don’t see a time we’ll ever need that school,” board member Cindy Frakes said. “ … We could probably close another school and still be OK.”
Read the resolution to sell the property »
Since it closed, the district has tried to rent out the building and succeeded only a couple times. The most recent tenant was BP just after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill three years ago.
Officials have tried to entice tenants more recently by offering the building rent-free if they paid for maintenance, but couldn’t find a taker, according to School Board Chairman Rodney Walker.
If the district sells the property, it will still have one other open facility — the old Combs-New Heights Elementary School on Lovejoy Road — and 40 acres of land north of Shalimar Elementary School to build another school if necessary, Smith said.
Officials aren’t looking to sell New Heights right now, he added. The building had a consistent tenant that kept up its maintenance until recently, and another group is leasing a portion of it now.
The school district likely will begin taking bids for the Ocean City property this week. As of Tuesday afternoon, the district planned to accept bids through June 28, but was still putting the finishing touches on the offer.
The assessed value of the land and structures was $2.5 million in 2012.
The property is zoned for institutional purposes, according to Okaloosa County’s Geographic Information Systems website.
If Superintendent of Schools Mary Beth Jackson selects one of the bids, it must go to the School Board for final approval.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.