(Seguin) — The Seguin ISD still finds itself on the road of selling its Mary B. Erskine property. That’s after the $1.4 million bid received for the campus failed.
The Seguin ISD Board of Trustees during a special meeting Thursday voted 5 to 1 to delegate authority to Superintendent Matthew Gutierrez to begin negotiations with the next highest bidder. Trustee Carl Jenkins was not present at the meeting.
Gutierrez says the district was forced to return to the bid list.
“The first bidder that we were all excited about backed out and so we are looking now at continuing with the sale of the property and going with our second bidder who is (Developer) Jason Howell. We don’t have any knowledge of what plans or intentions would be for that property at all, but we are going to continue with our plans to sell the property,” said Gutierrez.
The second bid is in the amount of $751,000.
The highest bid initially was submitted by Intrinsic Ventures Inc. During the announcement in January, the company had indicated that the historic property would be considered as a housing project while providing space for other limitless ideas.
Voting against this latest action was Trustee Denise Crettenden. Crettenden says her opposition was not about wanting to maintain the building but simply about wanting more information.
“I just felt like I wanted more information about the plans for the building and I just wanted to take some time to think about that,” said Crettenden.
Gutierrez says not knowing the bidder’s plans is indeed one of the differences this time around.
“What makes this different from the highest bidder is obviously it is half of what the highest bidder came with but we also had knowledge of what that prior bidder had interest in doing and so with that research, I think it brought a lot of excitement not only to the district but to the community about the possibilities with that beautiful building and so now, it will likely go to the second bidder and our hope is that it will continue to be an important location in this community and that the history of that facility will be honored in the future,” said Gutierrez.
Gutierrez says although they don’t know the details at this time, the district reserves every right to reject the agreement if not in the community’s best interest.
“This is not a final decision and ultimately, the board makes that final decision and they have allowed me as the superintendent to be able to undergo contract negotiations with the buyer and this doesn’t mean that it is a done deal. There could be concerns that come up. There may not be but there are a lot of unknowns about what the future holds for that building. But what we do know is that we have had too many buildings in the Seguin ISD that have just sat vacant and have been costing taxpayers upwards of $50,000 a year to maintain,” said Gutierrez
After the original bidder pulled out of the deal, the district had options for its next step. However, Gutierrez says continuing with the original bid process was the direction the district felt it needed to go.
“We could have rebidded, but we felt that it was only fair to continue with the process and to go with the second bidder,” said Gutierrez.
Gutierrez says the end result of selling the campus will in the long run benefit the district and hopefully the community. He says after the sale of Juan Seguin, Lizzie M. Burges and a portion of Saegert, the district realizes that it’s a deal that must get done.
“Coming to Seguin ISD back in 2017, one of the first task I was tasked with was to sell our vacant facilities and aging facilities such as Burges and so we want to continue with that plan which is part of our long range facilities’ plan that also addresses existing facilities and growth. It also addressed our vacant facilities,” said Gutierrez.
District officials say they hope to negotiate terms for a new deal and return them to the school board for final approval as soon as possible.