Moorpark Unified sells former community high school property for $6.2M
Moorpark Unified School District trustees voted unanimously Tuesday night to sell the vacant former site of Moorpark Community High School for $6.2 million.
The district announced the sale to Daniel Margolis, the owner of Moorpark's Command Performance Catering, in a news release Wednesday. Margolis could not immediately be reached Thursday morning via his catering company.
The sale is subject to a 120-day escrow, which starts when paperwork is finalized, district spokesperson Daniel Wolowicz said in an email.Moorpark Unified moved Community High to Moorpark High School's campus in April 2015 and closed down the site amid concerns over declining enrollment.
The next year, it leased the 17,000-square-foot building to the Ventura County Office of Education for $1 a year. The county opened a new career education center for adults and Moorpark students that ran until the program closed during the pandemic in 2020, Wolowicz said.
The 3.1-acre campus sat vacant through 2022, when Moorpark Unified triggered the legal process for a sale. The district obtained a waiver from the state to skip the normal bidding process for the building, a move the district said saved on brokerage costs and gave it more control over the building's next owner.
The district plans to use the funds for capital improvement projects, the news release says.
Isaiah Murtaugh covers education for the Ventura County Star in partnership with Report for America. Reach him at isaiah.murtaugh@vcstar.com or 805-437-0236 and follow him on Twitter @isaiahmurtaugh and @vcsschools. You can support this work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Moorpark Unified sells community high school site for $6.2M
