“I went to school there,” she said. “All my kids went to school there. I never imagined the school would never be there.”
She thinks it would be nice if the neighbors all pulled together and turned it into a park.
“There are a lot of kids in the neighborhood,” she said, “and the nearest park is over on Benninghofen, which is a little too far to send them out on their own.”
Meanwhile, across town on Westview Avenue, Wendell Reeves and his sister Robin Reeves appreciate the empty lot left behind after the demolition of the McKinley building, which in its last life was the home of the HOPE alternative school. They, too, are taking care of a bed-ridden parent, living in the home they grew up in. The family has lived there since 1959.
“Millikin Woods is right over the other side of the trees,” he said. “Every morning you look out there and there are a bunch of deer. Makes it nice to have an empty lot.”
“I wouldn’t want to see anything go up there, personally,” his sister said. “I like it the way it is now, and I’d hate to do away with anymore woods.”
Until two years ago, the Hamilton City School District had 13 elementary schools. With the new construction, that number is down to eight. Some of the new buildings were constructed on the site of the former buildings. One former building, Grant Elementary, has found new life as an early childhood education center.
But where Adams, Buchanan, Lincoln, Madison, McKinley, Monroe, Pierce and Van Buren elementaries used to be, there are now empty lots.
Van Buren was traded to the city of Hamilton for the property where the new Crawford Woods Elementary is located.
The Buchanan site was sold at auction last year for $30,000, half of its appraised value. According to Everett Mann, the district’s administrative assistant for business, selling at half-price was better for the district than waiting for a better deal.
“We would not want the expense of maintaining those lots and to have the liability issues,” he said. “We tried to look at the real estate market and asked if we thought things would get any better. We didn’t think they would.”
The Adams, McKinley, Monroe and Lincoln sites are set to go up for auction Oct. 31 at the district’s central office. Treasurer Robert A. Hancock will serve as auctioneer.
The land value of the 3.6-acre Lincoln lot is appraised at $55,000, Mann said. The 6.7-acre McKinley lot is appraised at $100,000. The Adams lot, 6.6 acres, and Monroe lot, 8.5 acres, have not been appraised without the buildings, but Mann said he expected that to be done before the auction.
But holding an auction doesn’t necessarily mean the properties will change hands. The site for Madison Elementary on North Ninth Street went up for auction last summer but no one bid on the property, which was appraised for $50,000. Neither did an 11-acre parcel on Timberhill Drive the district had purchased for a new elementary school before a feasibility study suggested the Wasserman Road site where Ridgeway Elementary School was built, Mann said. The district purchased the property for $23,000 in 1967. It is currently appraised at $180,000.
The city of Hamilton has an option on the Pierce property until December and is working with Neighborhood Housing Services of Hamilton for a possible housing project.
The district also owns lots on Bridgeport Drive and West Elkton Road that were purchased for the construction of the Freshman School and Bridgeport Elementary, but were not used. The district plans to auction those off as well, but they need to be subdivided by the city before the district can proceed, Hancock said.
“Once we have an auction,” Mann said, “if we don’t have a suitable bid, we can then negotiate to sell them.”
One local realtor speculated that one reason the properties haven’t been selling at auction is not only because of the uncertainty of the real estate market, but also because of the uncertainty of future development possibilities.
“I think some people are afraid to buy any property unless they know what the city of Hamilton is going to do and whether citizens who live nearby would come to City Council and try to stop it from happening,” said Realtor Phil Morrical III.
Things being as they are, however, Morrical said that having a large well-maintained green space would likely improve the property values of nearby homes.
“If the lots are leveled, cleared of debris and re-seeded, I think it would be an asset,” he said.
Mann said it was in the district’s best interest to demolish the buildings rather than try to sell them with the property.
Once the buildings are demolished, however, the only upkeep is to mow the grass, according to Jim Boerke, the district’s director of operations. That, he said, is done by staff members so there is no additional cost to the district.
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