Seven months after the Springfield school board unanimously agreed to shut down Robberson, it has taken the critical step to jettison the aging school building and its campus.
The board voted 6-0 — member Steve Makoski was absent — to declare Robberson as “surplus” property, a designation that clears the way for it to be sold, leased or transferred to a new owner.
Travis Shaw, deputy superintendent of operations, said the administration talked about its facility needs before it asked for the “surplus” designation.
“As this process has gone on and we went through the closing and the evaluation, we as an administration do not see that we have a purpose and useful reason to keep this school building,” Shaw told the board prior to the vote.
“As you know, it is not in great shape. It takes a lot of money to fix it up. It is a property that the longer it sits unused, then the more vandalism and things that it succumbs to.”
Shaw added: “We requested it be surplus so that we can get it off what is our responsibility and hopefully it’d be a better use to another entity within the community.”
Board member Kelly Byrne asked if declaring the property “surplus” means the district will definitely sell the property. Shaw explained this was just “step one.”
He said the next steps were to talk with a real estate agent and ascertain the market value of the property before it is listed for sale.
Shaw said the district will go through the formal Request for Information, or RFI, process to gather information from any entity that has interest in the property.
The district has a process for disposing of surplus real estate — which was paid for with public funds — that allows both the board and administration to evaluate any proposed sale for its viability and impact on the community as a whole and the immediate neighborhood.
In recent years, former school buildings have been repurposed by nonprofits and private developers.
Shaw said that listing the property for sale and accepting proposals through an RFI is just the beginning. He noted the proposals will be presented to the board in closed session.
“Under no circumstances does that bind the board to have to sell that property if it’s not for the price that you want, if it’s not for the reason which you want that property to be used for,” he said.
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Robberson, an elementary school that provided wraparound services as a neighborhood hub, is located at 1100 E. Kearney St., just west of National Avenue.
Opened in 1905, it was expanded multiple times over the years.
The students assigned to Robberson have been shifted to the recently rebuilt Boyd Elementary, which is 1.5 miles away at Sherman Avenue and Division Street.
Under board policy first adopted in 2014, the district can sell or lease any property it no longer needs or finds suitable as long as two-thirds of the board vote to make that move.
In the public comment section at the start of the meeting, Rev. Tray Walton of the Covenant of Grace Christian Center told the board he was interested in buying Robberson.
Walton said he wants to start a community center and expressed interest in buying Robberson in a letter to the board in May. “I stated that we would be interested in buying Robberson school. I understand it has to go through its proper processes to come on the market.”
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Robberson declared ‘surplus’ by SPS board, making sale possible
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