The Concord Board of Education is planning to bring two more potential property sales to local residents for their sign-off this year: the Dewey School and the land behind Broken Ground and Mill Brook.
Less than two years ago, local voters told the Concord Board of Education they wanted to have a say in whether the district sells off old schools or land.
These two properties would mark the third time the board has put a sale to the voters after the rule change. Voters this past fall approved sale of the Eastman School, which hasn’t been carried out yet.
These sales could reduce district maintenance costs and help defray the cost of the new middle school.
The board will need to hold hearings on the issue before voting formally to put potential sales on the ballot in the fall, a process the group unanimously moved to initiate Monday night.
The first property is the former Dewey School on Liberty Street. One of several former elementary schools around Concord, it currently serves as the district’s central offices. The board had previously looked into relocating those offices to Concord High, but now members say they want to know whether selling the school is an option before executing that change.
“That is just not something that’s feasible this year,” said Cara Meeker, the board’s vice president who proposed the ballot question. “What this does is it just asks the citizens of Concord what they think.”
The property, with its 1901 school building, has an assessed value of around $1.7 million. It sits in a residential neighborhood between White Park and Concord High.
The second property is in East Concord, addressed 11 Curtisville Road. It had previously been slated as the site of the district’s new middle school.
Now, the board is looking into whether voters are open to selling off some or all of the 59-acre parcel.
“We don’t have a plan for that property anymore,” said Madeline Mineau. “If we’re not going to build a school on it, we want to know what the people of Concord want us to do with it.”
The land is currently forested with some walking trails and sits in a medium-density residential zone. Its assessed value is just under half a million dollars. The district bought it for half that price in 1988.
Sarah Sadowski abstained from the Broken Ground vote because her home abuts the land, she said.
