OKC close to buying Dewey Elementary property to turn into a park despite price concerns

The city of Oklahoma City is set to purchase the former Dewey Elementary School, now vacant, demolish the building and turn the property into a community park for the Capitol View neighborhood in northeast Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoma City Public Schools board voted 6-2 during its most recent meeting to approve the sale, even after Oklahoma City Councilwoman Nikki Nice attended the meeting to protest the price tag of $350,000, saying that cost should be significantly lower.

Nice said she expects the council to vote on the sale Nov. 7 and believes the proposal will pass despite her opposition, which she also expressed during last week’s council meeting when the proposal was not on the agenda.

What has happened since Dewey Elementary closed in 2006?

Dewey Elementary School closed in 2006, served for a time after that as the Oklahoma City Public Schools' administration office space and has been vacant since 2015. The district first planned to convert the vacant elementary school at 3500 N Lindsay into a student services center. However, the district announced in 2018 it was withdrawing its proposal to rezone the property after hearing concerns from neighborhood residents about the project. The district had spent almost $400,000 on architectural, engineering and construction services before abandoning the conversion.

The school board declared the building and property as surplus and published an invitation to bid for purchase in June 2019. No bids were received at that time.

OKC neighborhood has wanted park

In 2018, when the city dropped the services center plan, neighborhood leaders had formally asked for a park to be built as part of a neighborhood revitalization strategy, city spokeswoman Kristy Yager said. The project was initiated through the city’s Strong Neighborhoods Initiative, a program that seeks to holistically improve neighborhoods through physical, social and economic investments, with the goal to help neighborhoods reach self-sufficiency.

Nice said neighborhood residents had wanted a park at the site before her tenure on the council began in 2018 and that “we have been in constant contact about this building for years.” She said other nearby properties once owned by Oklahoma City Public Schools had sold for much less than their appraisal value and questioned why Dewey Elementary School had not. Nice said the Dewey Elementary property had been appraised at $395,000, a number that the district would not confirm, saying the appraisal documents are confidential until the sale is final.

School board member Adrian Anderson — who joined Juan Lecona in voting against the proposal ― asked what the district’s policy was when it came to determining the price at which to sell surplus property.

The district’s chief operations officer, Scott Randall, said the district had been in “on and off” conversations with the city and sought an updated appraisal for the property through a third party before making the sale. He said the district simply was following its processes.

“We … looked at fair market value,” Randall said. “We are looking to be good stewards of our property and looking to sell it at or near the fair market value.”

Nice took exception with those comments. She said that a more appropriate deal would have been for the city to pay only the demolition costs for the project, not those costs plus $350,000, which will come from American Rescue Plan Act funds provided to the city.

“All of that money could be used to put more resources into the park,” Nice said. “This is what normally happens in communities that others are not vested in. It’s an internal issue that I have had with the school district. This should not be a best practice for any school district.”

Yager said the city is anticipated to close on its purchase of the property in December. Once the closing is complete, the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative will work with the city’s Parks and Recreation and Public Works departments to secure a design firm for the project. Community Development Block Grant funds will be used to pay for the park’s design and engineering, with ARPA funds being used for the property acquisition and park construction. She said the cost of the project is estimated at $2 million.

Groundbreaking for the project is expected to happen in late 2024 or early 2025, Yager said.

Nice said she is glad Capitol View residents will have their park but wishes it hadn’t taken so long and wouldn’t cost so much.

“These are great projects,” she said. “These are things that should have been done a long time ago.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma City will buy the vacant Dewey Elementary, build a park