School Districts See Cash in Surplus Land : Budgets: Some want to sell or lease unused property to fund building projects. Forming partnerships with developers is also viewed as a money source.

Eager to raise cash, Ventura County school districts are poised to sell or lease their surplus school property and sometimes even join with builders to develop their unused land to pay for various building projects.

Ventura, Moorpark, Conejo Valley and Simi Valley unified school districts are all debating how to cash in on their fallow land and allocate the money for new construction projects.

“In 1993, we’re going to see a great increase in this kind of thinking and activity by school districts,” said consultant Rush Hill, who helps school systems across California manage their surplus properties. “There’s no doubt about it.”

As state building funds continue to dry up, Hill said, more school districts will be exploring ways to use their real estate holdings to generate cash.

The Ventura Unified School District board, for instance, will decide next month whether to sell or lease two closed elementary schools: Washington School, a 5.5-acre campus on MacMillan Avenue, and Santa Ana School, a 10-acre campus on Baldwin Avenue. Both schools have been closed for 10 years.

The board will also consider whether to sell the school district’s business and personnel offices on Arcade Street. About 30 employees now work at the satellite facility, which occupies 3.5 acres.

If all three properties are sold, the district would use the money to consolidate its offices at its main headquarters at 120 E. Santa Clara St., school board member Terence M. Kilbride said. Money would also be used to relocate the district’s bus yard, located next to the main offices.

For years the Ventura district has sought to place its administrative offices under one roof for efficiency and convenience, Kilbride said. But he said such a consolidation is financially unfeasible without unloading some the district’s unproductive property.

“We have no other money,” he said. “We have to rely on the sale of these properties.”

Kilbride noted that the district has several unused parcels at the east end of the city but is holding onto them for future expansion.

Across the county, Moorpark Unified School District officials are negotiating with the city to sell a portion of the former Moorpark Memorial High School grounds. The 26-acre campus is located downtown, adjacent to City Hall.

The city wants to buy the campus’ 10-acre athletic field and turn it into a public park. Although negotiations are not finalized, they have centered on a $1.2-million purchase price, said school board President Tom Baldwin.

Baldwin said the district sold the school’s gymnasium, tennis and basketball courts more than a year ago to the Boys & Girls Club for $500,000.

He said the district wants to lease the remainder of the school property--about 13 acres--to a developer who will build apartments or condominiums. One developer’s proposal for an affordable apartment complex on the site was rejected by the City Council earlier this year because of questions about adequate financing for the project.

If the city purchases the athletic field, Baldwin said, about $400,000 would be used to build a new science wing at Chaparral Middle School. He said it is uncertain how the remainder of the money would be used.

Moorpark Mayor Paul Lawrason said he is confident the city and the school district will reach an agreement early next year on the purchase of the 10-acre field. Lawrason said the city has a special park fund, financed by developer fees, that will be used to purchase the land.

Hill, who runs a Newport Beach-based consulting firm, said many school districts are just beginning to learn about using their own real estate assets to generate revenue. He said while some lack what they consider to be “surplus property,” they may have unusually large and underused campuses that can be severed from school grounds and sold or leased.

He acknowledged that some land holdings might not be perceived as very profitable because they are in areas zoned strictly residential. In such instances, he said, districts may want to consider land swaps with developers or local governments.

Another option, he said, would be to move a district’s headquarters onto a closed school site and sell or lease its office property. He noted that district offices are usually located in areas zoned for commercial or industrial development.

“I have never found a school district that had no opportunities available to it,” Hill said. “Literally millions of dollars could be pumped into capital funds for our schools, funds that are desperately needed, if they just had the wherewithal to use their existing assets.”

Still, some districts with surplus property are finding it difficult to turn them into moneymakers.

For example, the Conejo Valley school board decided last summer to sell a 2.2-acre parcel next to University Elementary School on Atlas Avenue. The land is zoned for 10 single-family houses.

But two months passed and the district received no offers, so it decided to take the property off the market, Assistant Supt. Sarah Hart said. The opening bid for the land was $500,000.

Hart said the district plans to put the property back on the market when the economy turns around.

“It’s just a bad time right now, with the recession and the current slump in the real estate market,” Hart said. “We’re just going to wait.”

Hart said the district had been planning to use the money generated from the sale of the land to install air-conditioning systems in some schools. She said money would have also been used for renovation and general repairs.

Hart said the district would eventually like to lease out a 1.5-acre parcel next to its main office on Janss Road. She said the land could possibly be used for a professional building for physicians and lawyers.

But she said that such a venture is still a few years away.

Meanwhile, the Simi Valley Unified School District, which already leases several surplus properties to private and commercial businesses, is looking at additional business ventures.

The district, in partnership with two developers, seeks to generate new revenue for local schools by developing a vacant 36-acre site on the corner of Tapo Canyon Road and Alamo Street, across from the Simi Valley civic center.

In March, the district and the developers unveiled a plan to use 26 acres for a shopping center, with the remaining 10 acres set aside for a senior citizen apartment complex and single-family houses.

School officials planned to lease the land to the developers and estimated that over a 10-year period the project would yield more than $30 million for capital improvements.

Officials said some of the money would be used to build new science and computer labs at the two high schools and new gymnasiums at the four junior high schools.

But the proposal, which would have required a zoning change to allow commercial development, was flatly rejected by the City Council. City officials have repeatedly come under fire for allowing too many such projects in the city while a large amount of commercial space remains vacant.

Neighbors of the project site complained about the noise and traffic that would be created.

Mary Beth Wolford, director of business services, said school district officials are regrouping to come up with a more acceptable use, such as developing 134 single-family houses on the site.

District officials are not as enthusiastic about building houses because it would generate only $12 million.

“We need to do better than simply a one-time-only payment for a residential development,” school board member Doug Crosse said. “We owe it to the taxpayer to get the maximum dollar for that land.”

The Simi Valley school district now leases three closed elementary schools to public and private businesses. It also has a 99-year lease with a developer on a Los Angeles Avenue parcel that is occupied by a strip shopping center.

The district is “in a very unique situation” and “very fortunate” to have so much surplus property, Crosse said.

Wolford said the 36-acre parcel has been leased out for years for agricultural purposes. But the farmer who now leases the land for $1,500 a month to grow strawberries and corn has informed the district that he is retiring at the end of this month.

Wolford said the district has been advertising the land for lease during the past few weeks.

“Quite frankly, we haven’t gotten much of a response,” she said.