District will keep Center School and land

The Grand Coulee Dam School District board authorized the purchase of Center School and land adjacent to it at its meeting Monday night.

The title to the site used by local school districts for decades stipulated that ownership would revert to a private holding company if it was no longer to be used for a school.

The price to see that that doesn’t happen, said district Superintendent Dennis Carlson, is $155,000.

The sale will give the district clear title for the Center School building and surrounding land for a total of 8.465 acres.

Carlson stated that the site has 5.2 acres of usable land, but builders might find a way to use the remaining acreage.

The district’s board of directors has authorized Carlson to enter into the purchase agreement with the firm in Spokane that holds interest for Continental Land Company. Carlson said the school district will enter into a three-year purchase contract.

The building and site had been valued by the county assessor at $2.739 million, but may not appraise at that level because it would be expensive to rehabilitate the building, and the site itself would be expensive to develop.

Carlson stated that the school district will put the building and land up for sale at a later date, placing it on the tax roles.

The school and site had attracted interest from the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce, which has been working towards the property moving over to the private sector for development.

The Continental Land Company, which deals mostly in mining interests, had made the site available for a school with the understanding that when it was no longer used as a school it would revert back to the holding company.

The Center site stopped being used as a school with the completion this September of the district’s new school complex in Coulee Dam. The district has been contemplating the purchase of the building and site for sometime.

“We will need to get the school and property appraised before we can put it up for sale,” Carlson stated.

The building housed some 350 students from kindergarten through the fourth grade, as well as some other uses.