By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
The Lincoln County School District has put its 2.81-acre property in downtown Waldport back on the market – and already has two offers that led it to pull the listing last fall.
In addition to two purchase offers, however, the Central Coast Fire & Rescue District Volunteer Association is asking the district to donate the property to it so it can help the fire district develop a training area
The former site of the former Waldport elementary/middle school is a prime piece of real estate in downtown Waldport. It holds an old school gym, cafeteria, commercial kitchen, community garden and lots of flat, unused space and is listed for sale for $595,000.
The city of Waldport submitted an offer Friday, hoping to turn it into community space adjacent to its planned Louis Southworth Park.
A Waldport business owner submitted a bid a week earlier with the idea of using the gym for community events and recreation and creating a mixed-use development – retail stores, apartments and a motel – on the rest of the property.
The 14,000 square foot former gymnasium, cafeteria, adjoining parking lot and community garden has sat unused since Seashore Family Literacy returned it to the school district last March. Seashore had been using the building and grounds since 2014 under a $2 purchase agreement with the school district.
But the agreement also said the nonprofit had to return the property to the district if it ever stopped using it – which it did during the pandemic — and because it had no county or state permits for many of the building’s uses.
After getting the property back and making repairs to the building, the school district put it on the market last summer for $750,000, eventually lowering the price to $595,000.
The district received offers from a Waldport business owner and the city last fall. The competing offers prompted Superintendent Karen Gray to pull it off the market to give the school board time to think about price and “potential uses for the property that support the mission and vision of the Lincoln County School District …”
“It was not an easy decision. But the right one,” Gray said in an October email to the city.
The property was among other real estate issues discussed at school board executive (closed) sessions in November and December.
The Waldport city council held a brief executive session Thursday to hear from city manager Dann Cutter that the property was back on the market and to see if it was still interested in pursuing a purchase. In a statement Friday, Cutter said they were.
“The council was unanimously supportive of wanting to both save the building and to ensure that we could protect that important space for our kids right next to Southworth Park,” he said in an email to YachatsNews.
Cutter said the city envisions a recreation space for kids as well as preserving the community garden.
“Finally, it is a perfect space to explore eventually building a new library attached to the old gym and creating a new community space which would leave the existing community center as potentially returning to a senior center,” Cutter said.
“While we respect that others may see commercial opportunities in that space, so many other locations in town with better visibility are unused – the council feels strongly about protecting this space for the kids.”
The business owner – who talked with YachatsNews on the condition he not be named – has similar community-oriented ideas for the former gym, cafeteria and kitchen. But the remainder of the property, he said, would be ideal for mixed-use – retail stories along the highway and housing on other parts of the property.
The latest party interested in the property is the fire district’s volunteer organization, which is a nonprofit support group that recruits fire volunteers and helps the district with public outreach and programs. The association sent a letter March 9 to the district asking to discuss it donating the property because when the city develops Southworth Park the fire district will lose its training area.
The letter said the association would use the former gym, cafeteria and kitchen for training sessions and community events and create a training ground with structures on the rest of the property.
Gray said in an email to YachatsNews that the district will take the best offer “and will consider, if we can, the purpose for the use of the property …”
The school board has scheduled an executive session to discuss real estate Tuesday night before its regular monthly meeting, but it is not clear whether the Waldport property is the topic or other real estate transactions the district is considering.
- Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
Thank you for the information. Question. Is there many children in Waldport? The only time we see kids is if they are vacationing here. Always love the idea of programs for our youth. But where are they?