If the school has no practical use then I would love to see the site converted to an enlarged neighborhood park. Sadly, it seems more likely that it will be sold for (over-)development like Briarcliff. Is there a way to prevent this from happening?

Tear it down, sell the land to developers and put the money back into the school district. A park would be nice, but a great park already exists directly below the property. The school district needs the money more than we need a duplicate park.

They should sell the school to make up for some of the budget shortfall, then convert it to condos as they’ve done with schools on Queen Anne. It’s a cool building and it would be a shame to just raze it like they do with the rest of Seattle. It would make the city happy as a nod to density, and it already has parking, so it wouldn’t compete with nearby houses’ street parking. If it’s not zoned for condos up there, give it an exception.

Spot on Chris. Surprised this wasn’t done during the real estate boom. Alas, I fear private development will be difficult/impossible in the current environment. Blight continues to rampage unabated throughout the city.

I think the school district should hold onto the property. I think voters should vote yes on the levy on the current ballot. Seattle Public Schools is growing again. Projections are it will continue to do so. Several schools are already facing overcrowding this year. If SPS sells the property in Magnolia, can you imagine the ruckus folks would raise? Critics would complain SPS was wasting money if they had to build a new school on a new piece of expensive Magnolia or Queen Anne property, instead of just remodeling an old one? Darned if you do, and darned if you don’t.

Selling school properties is short-sighted. We will need a new high school in this area of town given current population growth. The 4 “old” cluster elementaries are bursting at the seams and the new one is bound to fill eventually. McClure can’t handle the anticipated population…Blaine must stay K-8 or we’re out of room for middle school in just a couple of years. Magnolia and QA are crawling with kids….they are everywhere. Count babies one day, just for fun.

Once you’ve sold the properties, they are gone forever, and the chance of buying new property for a school is small. Selling QA High School is one of the all-time biggest blunders of the SPS.

right on mag mom,

You’re all right to some degree.

I served on the Board’s Closure and Consolidation Committee several years back when the district first decided to close schools. I answered all the e-mails the committee received. In terms of what to do with closed properties, it was fairly even.

One, hold onto them because we may need them and/or lease them to community groups for community needs.

Or two, sell them outright and use the money to help the district.

I can see both sides but you should know a couple of things about SPS facilities.

We have a nearly $500 million backlog of maintenance. Some of it is in empty buildings. The district ramps down a lot when a building goes empty and that advances the deterioration of the building (not to mention its unattractiveness in the neighborhood). The district doesn’t secure the buildings well and in Magnolia you got squatters and in NW Seattle where Viewlands Elementary is, they got all the copper wiring stripped from the building.

This backlog is because the district has been doing less and less maintenance on buildings (we’re at nearly half of what we spent in the late ’70s). So, as any homeowner knows, little problems become big problems if you ignore them.

So we build beautiful new buildings (with Garfield our $120M all-time cost champ) and yet aren’t really going to maintain them. We have older buildings getting older by the minute and we’re not really maintaining them.

The district is trying to do a little better but when you let things get that far out of whack, it’s hard to come back.

The district is going to reopen 5 previously closed buildings and the capital costs (alone) are nearly $50M. That’s not staffing, furniture, etc. One of them is in QA so I’m thinking Magnolia won’t be opened any time soon.

The district will soon own a parking garage near Memorial Stadium (this is an exchange with the city for some of the Memorial stadium land). That’s where they would build a new high school for QA/Magnolia, not Magnolia school (too small an area for a high school).

But MagMom is right; selling off QA High (and at a very cheap price) is right up there as the king of bad decisions.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the District could do some sort of property swap and get some land in Interbay in exchange for the Magnolia School?

Then they could build the new high school they need on the Interbay site.

While it is possible that the District might someday need more elementary capacity in Magnolia, they could get it through the already anticipated renovation of the existing schools. These days the District is building – or re-building – all of their elementary schools bigger than they used to.

We happened to be walking by the school when the police arrived. We continued on our walk and on our return, saw the police on the phone standing next to what looked like three teenage boys sitting in a line, up against a wall. We figured they were neighborhhod kids having an adventureous Saturday afternoon exploring the school and who had a lot of explaining to do when they got home.

no surprise here. i’m shocked it hasn’t happened sooner.

Maybe the city could lease the empty school to the children’s television program that is taking over the QA gym / community center. QA would get to keep its gym and this building would get at least a temporary resident.

I drive by this property almost everyday and it makes me sad. Beautiful old building, but seriously, if it can’t be maintained to the barest minimum standards, how does the district expect to find the funds to bring it up to standards IF there’s a need for it in the future.

Get it off the books, maybe a share with non-profits and grant money to fix it. I don’t know, but at this rate it could cave in from neglect or squatters could ignite it and burn it down.

Just my humble opinion.

The Seatte PSD needs to stay out of the real estate business. Many posters have noted the QAHS deal that will go down as one of the worst transactions in the Districts history.

I say sell it. I don’t want even a remote possibility for another school on Magnolia. All the kids and the noise gives me a headache.

i’d love to see it converted to artist/work space, or something equally useful. lord knows i could use a space the size of a classroom for some of my projects.

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