As the Concord Board of Education stared down a tight bottom line the past two years, its members saw selling off property as one potential relief.
Over the years, the district has largely passed along vacated schools to both public and private entities. The Dame school became the City Wide Community Center. The Walker School was bought by and now houses Binnie Media.
The board is looking at two properties now: the former Dewey School, currently the district’s central offices near White Park, and 11 Curtisville Road, a 59-acre wooded property that had once been eyed as the site for a new middle school.
As is now required under charter amendments passed in 2024, the voting public in Concord would first have to grant permission to sell these properties. There will be hearings on July 13 about whether questions asking for those permissions should appear on this year’s November ballot.
It’s a process the board started in March, at the tail end of its budget deliberations.
“Why sit on this asset?” Board Member Jessica Campbell asked at the time. “We should see what the citizens would like us do, and it has to start with asking for permission to sell it.”
So far, there has been little pushback to the idea of selling Dewey. It’s in the heart of a residential neighborhood, isn’t ADA accessible on all floors and carries a relatively high annual maintenance cost. Officials and their constituents alike have pointed to its potential for housing, generating taxes for the city or, at least, offloading expenses from the district’s balance sheet.
The idea of selling the Broken Ground land has drawn more local hesitance.
The land currently hosts a portion of the relatively short and flat Batchelder Mill Road trail network. It abuts a larger property owned jointly by the district and the city of Concord and placed under conservation.
Many in the immediate neighborhood don’t want a private company digging up that land any more than they wanted the school district doing it.
Parts of the land are practically in Liz Tardugno’s backyard. Her son is going into first grade at Mill Brook, and his school walks and learns on the nearby trails often. She thinks the district has more to lose than gain by selling that stretch of woods right now.
“While I understand the need for money,” Tardugno told the board this week, “I don’t think this parcel is costing money the same way that the buildings are.”
Neighbors have asked the board not to put the Broken Ground land on the ballot, or at least not yet. Some have suggested they want time to craft conservation language, or to seek out an alternative that would both allow the district to hand off the acreage and for it to remain in its current forested state.
At the same time, the district had long held onto that property, eyeing it as a site for a future school. With that option now off the table, some board members noted in March, the land could hold real value in a sale.
The hearings will take place on July 13 at the district offices in the Dewey School at 6 p.m.
After Monday’s hearings, the board will vote on whether to move forward with ballot questions for each property. If in November voters say ‘yes,’ they will merely be giving the district the option to put those properties on the market. When they sell, who the buyer would be, the sale price and, in the case of the Broken Ground land, whether they sell the whole thing or just a piece would be left to district officials to settle and negotiate over time.
Voters overwhelmingly OK-ed putting the Eastman School on the market last year. The district has put out a call for committee members to help oversee the sale process, but it hasn’t taken substantial steps toward putting the school on the market.
