After a public hearing that drew no comments about the issue, the St. Paul school board voted Tuesday to permanently close the old Franklin school building and give it to the city in return for the East Side Community Center, next to Harding Senior High.
The city plans to tear down a recreation center next to the Franklin building and lease the former school to the Mount Airy Boys and Girls Club.
The school district would use the East Side Community Center for overflow activities from Harding.
According to a memo from Superintendent Valeria Silva to school board members, the district would recoup the difference in market value between the two properties in a little over a year through lower operating costs.
She said the properties compare as follows:
Franklin is valued at $2.97 million and costs $371,000 a year to operate. It has 55,165 square feet and a remaining economic life of 10 years.
The East Side Community Center is valued at $2.72 million and costs $148,000 a year to operate. It has 22,000 square feet and a remaining economic life of 22 years.
The $250,000 difference in market value between the two sites would be made up in just more than a year through the $223,000 annual savings in operating costs, Silva said.
The district temporarily closed Franklin at the end of last school year, and the building did not figure in the district’s just-approved strategic plan. Franklin students were relocated to North End Elementary.
The property swap is scheduled to go before the City Council Wednesday.
In other school board action, members authorized administration officials to solicit grants to support a marketing program aimed at driving up district enrollment.
Two grants for a total of $100,000 have been approved by the 3M and Saint Paul foundations, according to staff, and another request for $75,000 is being made to the Bigelow Foundation.
A key building block of Silva’s strategic plan is to add about 3,500 students to the 38,000-pupil district by 2014, which would generate more than $22 million in new revenue.
