Friday 10 July 2015

The Old School

They are finally selling off (by auction) my old school (well, the one from the first grade to the ninth grade).  The auction company put up a couple of pictures and it'll be held in roughly three weeks.

The deal will compose a fairly new gym (at least 15 years old), a red-brick school building with five big rooms and a basketball court, a newer school area which has six rooms, a cafeteria, a library, a baseball park, and maybe a total of 40 acres.

My guess is that it'll go up to a separate sell on each, and then some last minute episode to sell the whole thing together.

The only things worth buying?

Well, here the problems and issues.  The old brick building looks nice but it's a renovation queen and would take at least $50,000 in repairs....plus heating the thing would be costly.  The cafeteria might be worth something but it's in the far back of the school.

So you are left with the gym and a couple of acres around it.....which might make it worth $60,000 in my humble opinion.  It'd make a fine store-front.

As for the ballpark?  Well.....what exactly would you do with the six-odd acres?

All combined in the final sale?  I can't see anyone bidding more than $100,000 for the whole property.  Someone might buy the building for an antique shop and multipurpose situation for the rest.  Beyond that.....I just don't see it being a hot property.

The red-brick building goes back to the mid-1930 period and probably has a lot of history tied into it.  But what does that translate to in 2015?  Will someone get real stupid and buy it for sentimental reasons and discover the reality of an old structure two weeks later?

My humble bet is that three-hundred people show up to just watch the event unfold.  A couple of guys will bid onto the gym.  Maybe two or three guys will bid on the ballpark.  And maybe some old retired guy will put a pretty low bid up for the remainder.

The building was used for roughly seventy-five-odd years and did well.....with over 10,000 kids who transited the facility and moved on in life.