Ames Schools Committee Recommends Demolishing Roosevelt and Selling Somerset Site

The Ames Community School Board's Real Estate Liquidation Advisory Committee will recommend that that School Board sell the Somerset property reserved for a school and demolish Roosevelt Elementary School.

These are among several recommendations the committee has come up with and the school board will discuss at its meeting tonight.

A draft plan includes selling the plot, selling the district's rental home at 1013 9^th Street, and demolishing Roosevelt Elementary and converting it into a city park within the next six months. The committee also recommends selling the old Middle School property in its entirety.

A site in Somerset along G.W. Carver Avenue had been reserved for a school, but a committee studying the bond issue said that land might be better suited for a that could bring the district property tax revenues.

Roosevelt Elementary was closed in 2005, though some residents have tried to save it. According to the draft about a half acre of the property would be turned into a park and the committee said the board should sell the remaining bare land in future years.

The committee also recommends converting a portion of into a city park and removing the building and sale of the district's other unused properties at Crawford, Willson-Beardshear and the district's maintenance sites.

The school board plans to discuss these recommendations at its meeting tonight and in the future before they become part of the master plan, a release from the school district stated.

The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at the multipurpose room of