By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
WALDPORT – After a five-month on-off-on negotiation process, the city of Waldport will become the new owner of the 2.81-acre Lincoln County School District property in downtown.
The city announced Monday that the district and it had agreed on the sale of the property – subject to approval of the city council at its meeting in April.
The price was $475,000, said Waldport city manager Dann Cutter and school district superintendent Karen Gray.
Cutter said the city hopes to make the old elementary/middle school gymnasium, cafeteria and kitchen into a community center and the western anchor of the adjacent 12-acre Louis Southworth Park, whih is plans to develop the next 2-3 years. The city plans to keep the community garden intact and hopefully one day build a new, modern library alongside the gym, Cutter said.
“This can be the heart and soul of downtown and Southworth Park,” Cutter said Monday. “It gives us so many more options.”
But to purchase the property the city has to move some money around.
Cutter said he plans to take some of the city’s $1.5 million in reserves sitting in a state-sponsored investment pool and move it to a local bank where it can also earn 4 percent interest. He hopes to negotiate a bank loan for the property purchase at 5 percent – essentially costing the city the 1 percent difference – and using the city’s reserves as a way to secure the funding.
“It’s well within our financial capabilities,” he said.
Cutter said he then plans to begin seeking grants to help pay for the purchase.
“This should be a pretty big bang for the buck in terms of what it will cost and what it will mean to the community,” he said.
The school property also drew the interest of Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue District Volunteer Association, a nonprofit which asked the district to donate it to them to use as a training center, and a Waldport business owner who told YachatsNews he offered to beat any price by the city up to $500,000.
Gray, who was given authority by the school board to negotiate and sell the property, told YachatsNews on Monday it went to the city “for the purpose of enhancing the livability of the city of Waldport.”
Former Seashore 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 a year ago. 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 the Waldport business owner and the city last fall. The competing offers prompted 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 …”
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 March 9 to hear that the property was back on the market and to see if it was still interested in pursuing a purchase. It authorized Cutter to negotiate a deal.
Community center
Cutter said purchasing the property will add to the Southworth Park footprint, giving it more parking, exterior restrooms and retaining the community garden. Longer-term plans include rehabilitating the building into a community recreation and activity center – an indoor space for youth and adult sports, events and possibly even a winter farmer’s market.
“We were concerned about the possibility of this not happening,” he said.
The city has also been seeking places to build a new library in the future – and now it has one, Cutter said.
“This property has been a hub for our community since I was a child at Waldport Elementary,” city councilor Melaia Kilduff, whose mother, Senitila McKinley, founded Seashore Family Literacy and is now a member of the school board, said in a news release from the city. “I look forward to creating a permanent space for families and children to create memories there, again.”
- Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
Good news! I pray that the newly created community spaces will continue to be available to everyone, no matter their income, and that this wonderful opportunity to showcase our area’s amazing diversity does not become yet one more divisive political football. An old hippie can dream, can’t she? It would be spectacular if enough can be done by June [insurance, etc.] that Beachcomber’s Days would have easier access to more of the property’s features.