Garfield Elementary School in Marinette on August 20, 2019. PC: Fox 11 Online
MARINETTE, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – After rejecting a full-price offer from a private school earlier this year, the Marinette Public School District has a deal in place to sell one of its old schools for about $35,000 below its asking price.
However, the buyer is expected to receive a challenge from neighbors that could keep the sale from going through.
The former Garfield Elementary School building has sat empty for two years after closing as part of the district’s efforts to right-size amid declining enrollment.
“With that right sizing, we were looking at being fiscally responsible, while modernizing our learning environments,” said Corry Lambie, the superintendent for Marinette Public Schools.
The fiscally responsible part is why the district put a deed restriction on the old Garfield building, stating it couldn’t be sold to anyone intending to re-use it as a school for 4K-12th grades.
The head of Saint Thomas Aquinas Academy’s board of trustees put in a full-price, $300,000, offer earlier this year. The plan was to bring the private school’s elementary students from their current location in Peshtigo to Garfield, much closer to the middle and high school students.
However, Marinette Public Schools feared it would end up losing money due to students leaving the district to attend the new private school.
“The voucher program is costly, so that was part of the fiscal responsibility when we looked at the decision back in February when the board was talking through this already,” said Lambie.
Lambie says it potentially wouldn’t have taken too long for the $300,000 sale to be wiped out due to a loss in funding for the district from students using vouchers to attend Saint Thomas Aquinas Academy.
“It all comes down to money,” said Marinette School Board member Martin Shaw.
Shaw is one of two school board members who voted this week to not accept an offer from a buyer who plans to turn the old school into housing.
Three people, including two members of the Saint Thomas Aquinas Academy’s board of trustees, are preparing legal action against the school district. They say the district is illegally using taxpayer dollars to maintain the empty building.
A lawyer representing the trio says she isn’t sure yet how the potential sale could impact the legal action.
“We’re not in competition with their school,” said Frank Staggs, a Saint Thomas Aquinas trustee who is one of the three preparing to sue the district.
Staggs lives near the former Garfield building and says neighbors plan to fight rezoning efforts.
“We’ve signed petitions and we’ve got over 600 or 700 signatures to say hey we want this to be a school,” said Staggs. “We’re not going to stop fighting for this to be a school.”
The sale is contingent on the property being rezoned for housing.
The potential buyer, Anything You Want LLC, is a corporation based in Sturgeon Bay. They plan to use the building for housing.
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