Trustees move to sell Laser, shift main office

By NANCY KIMBALL

The Daily Inter Lake

Laser School will be listed for sale, the School District 5 central administration building may be sold or go up for a different lease option, and another site will be explored for central administration.

That's the proposal from Superintendent Darlene Schottle and agreement from the Kalispell school board Tuesday night, as trustees move into the final realignment crunch before opening Glacier High School a year from now.

After authorization last month, the district hired Kits Smith of Prudential Glacier Real Estate to represent the school on real-estate transactions.

All decisions will be funneled through trustees, based on the best building configuration of schools and the best income for the districts.

When Glacier High opens, Kalispell will move from one 10th- through 12th-grade high school to two ninth- through 12th-grade high schools, two alternative high school student bodies in Laser School and Bridge Academy, a middle school for sixth through eighth grades, and five elementary schools for kindergarten through fifth grades.

It leaves trustees with the opportunity to solve some facilities problems:

. Linderman School will be left empty when seventh grade moves to the middle school.

. The old, four-story central administration building, which houses the Flathead County Library downstairs, poses problems for handicap accessibility and warehousing.

. Current facilities for Laser School, which is the old Edgerton Elementary building, and Bridge Academy, in the former Gateway West Mall, could be considered less than desirable.

Since high-school construction bonds passed in November 2004, trustees have looked at a kaleidoscope of options - including moving central administration and warehousing into Linderman, relocating Laser and/or Bridge there, moving the district's central kitchen out of cramped quarters at Flathead High, sending central administration to another building.

Now poised to move forward, Schottle needed some guidelines for the contract to offer Smith for his real-estate services. Trustees gave her that guidance.

As it turns out, Linderman is the most feasible building for the district to put to another use - either for Laser and Bridge students, or for central administration and some related services.

And Laser, with its location bordering commercial and residential districts, seems to be the most marketable.

The preferred option is to find a building in the Kalispell area to relocate central offices, including central office support staff, warehouse, central kitchen, print shop, bus and transportation facilities - or some combination thereof.

In any event, central administration hopes to move out of its current building on First Avenue East. The district would ask Smith to research options to either fill the vacated space or sell the building and offer the library a settlement for its lease.

Schottle anticipates streamlined costs and improved efficiencies with the proposal. She expects sale income to balance out relocation and associated expenses.

Smith obtained appraisals of the three buildings that were considered as possible sale properties.

Laser, the best prospect for sale, came in at $540,000.

Linderman, pegged at $2.59 million, was considered the lowest option for sale. Central administration, considered the least-sellable because of its library lease and parking, appraised at $2.3 million.

Trustees on Tuesday night made it clear that Laser School, in any event, will not be moved until after completion of the coming school year.

Before any sales are set in motion, however, procedural steps will be cleared away to determine ownership between the high school and elementary districts, to declare the building surplus property, and to determine whether buyers exist.

With contract specifics outlined, Smith can move forward in the coming weeks and give the trustees an idea of where another piece of their realignment puzzle will fit.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com.