Library purchases land for new facility

Two land purchases last week moved Sisters toward the creation of a central "campus" for three public entities -- the city, the school district and the library.

The City of Sisters and the Deschutes Public Library District each bought parcels from the Sisters School District -- parcels that were part of the former Sisters Middle School site.

The irregularly shaped site lies between Highway 20 and Main Avenue on the east side of town.

Both buyers paid $9 per square foot for the land. The city bought 32,400 square feet on the northeast corner of the site for $291,600. The library district bought an adjacent 43,200 square feet on the northwest corner for $388,800

The Sisters City Council hopes to build a new city hall on its newly acquired property while the library district is expected to build a new Sisters Library next door.

A southern section of the site, which contains a brick building that was originally built as the Sisters High School in 1937 and more recently housed the middle school, will be retained by the school district. The school board is exploring the possibility of remodeling the building as the district's central administration office.

Both purchased parcels lie north of what is expected to become an extension of Cascade Avenue. From its $680,400 proceeds, the school district will pay for the demolition of a classroom building and gymnasium that occupy part of the area sold. The district also agreed to take care of asbestos removal and the removal of an old fuel oil tank on the property. All three owners will share the cost of the extension of Cascade Avenue through the site.

The school board made its decision to sell a portion of the former Middle School in April 2001, after voters approved a bond issue to build a new high school. The bond included money to remodel the existing high school so that it could become the district's new middle school.

Some time before, the city had zoned the middle school site for public facilities only, which limited its potential on the market. The 2001 sales resolution expressed the school board's intent "to market and sell the property at the maximum value possible after rezoning to its highest and best value."

The same resolution promised to "use $500,000 in proceeds from the sale of this property to finance the district office facility and establish a maintenance reserve fund."

The board seems satisfied with the outcome of its property-marketing effort.

Board members Eric Dolson, publisher of The Nugget, and Bill Reed, a Sisters Realtor, constitute the board's facilities committee and as such acted as chief negotiators for the sale. When asked about the result last week, Dolson said: "We (the board) determined that a portion of the community and certainly the city probably wanted that property to remain in a public facilities zone."

"Given that we had two willing buyers for this property under that zoning, (including) shared responsibilities for development, I think everybody comes out ahead," he said. "I think truly this is the highest and best use of the property and is in the community's best interest."

Could the district have received more if the zoning had been upgraded? Dolson said: "I think if you were to take a look at what the school district received and look at what the relevant expenses would have been for rezoning, partition, sales commissions and all of the other expenses that would have been incurred by the school district...this is a very fair price for all parties.

"We have to think of other things besides just purely maximizing the dollar value. There was great community concern expressed about the future of this parcel. But I actually do believe we realized a sales price that nets us very close to what we would have gotten had we gone through the pain and heartache of a rezoning."

Dolson declined to estimate the cost of demolition of current structures, asbestos removal and extraction of the old fuel oil tank, saying he did not want to influence the bids for those jobs.

The two property sales apparently won't hinder SOAR (Sisters Organization for Activities and Recreation), the nonprofit organization that occupies two buildings on the middle school site facing Locust Street.

SOAR owns and holds a number of classes and other activities in a building on the northeast corner of the site. But Tom Coffield, executive director of SOAR who was elected to the school board last spring, said that modular building will be put up for sale and can be moved to wherever the new owner wishes.

SOAR's own offices and a new Head Start program co-sponsored by the organization occupy a "metal, garage-looking building," as Coffield described it, to the south. It is owned by the school district and presumably will be demolished eventually.

SOAR is constructing a new building on the site of the new Sisters High School on the old McKenzie Highway west of town. That building should be finished in January.

Coffield said, "We will move the first week of February...and from what I understand both the city and the library have okayed us staying (in existing quarters) until that time..."