Roosevelt Elementary School Bidders Have 30 Days to Put Their Best Offer in Writing

Anyone interested in buying the former Roosevelt Elementary School has less than 30 days to send bids to the Ames Community School District.

The Ames Community School Board decided informally Monday to send out a request for bids and instructed Karen Shimp, the district's chief financial officer, to let all interested parties know that they would have 30 days to send in their best offers.

This came after Board Member Luke Deardorff, who also sits on the real estate liquidation committee, said that he wanted to give bidders just 14 days to make an offer and approve the sale at the board's next January meeting, knowing that there is at least one serious buyer.

During discussions, Board Member David Putz pressed for more time and some other board members said they didn't have a problem with waiting 30 days.

Putz argued to put off the process saying that nonprofit groups wouldn't know their budgets until June.

“Thirty days is not going to kill us,” Putz said.

However Teresa Simpson, a board member who also sits on the real estate liquidation committee, said she wanted to allow just 14 days.

“Fourteen days is adequate. We have a potential person willing to move on the property,” Simpson said adding that all they've heard from other buyers were “maybes.”

The school district closed the building in 2005 to save operating costs and board members made the decision to sell Roosevelt Elementary and other unused properties after deciding that they wouldn't need them in the future.

Roosevelt Elementary neighborhood residents and members of the greater community have rallied around Roosevelt since its closing, hoping the building would reopen as a school and that at the very least the park area around the building would be saved. A September 2011 bond issue that included reopening Roosevelt failed, but city staff said they would be open to maintainting a park on the school site.

No matter who buys the real estate, Deardorff said that 1.3 acres of the land should be dedicated as a city park. City Staff said they would support maintaining a park there if the land was donated clean and green.

Some board members and Superintendent Tim Taylor said the school is worth almost nothing once you consider the cost of demolishing the near 100-year-old school building.

However, a local real estate developer has recently proposed turning the structure into condominiums, something that Roosevelt area residents said they would be in favor of.