Second offer made in sale of former Butler middle school
BUTLER TWP — The Butler Area School District now has a second offer to buy the former Butler Middle School building.
A man who reached out to the school district on Friday made his interest in the property known, superintendent Brian White said at a board meeting Monday, Nov. 4.
“We were prepared tonight as a district to have a sales agreement on the agenda,” White said. “Right before our 6 o’clock meeting, a gentleman with a check and signed agreement ... requested a copy of the agreement with the other party, and offered more money.”
With a unanimous vote, the school board decided to ask the Court of Common Pleas to get a second appraisal of the building.
“Both parties will be notified. We’ll arrange the court date and let both parties bid it out,” White said. “That’s the spirit of a competitive environment and a capitalistic society.”
White made clear that the process “is not instantaneous,” and that a court hearing date could be a couple months from now.
“The solicitor advised us it would take a couple months, have to get two appraisals, and we’re at the mercy of when the court schedules it. We hope they schedule as soon as possible,” board vice president Gary Shingleton said.
The board had said at a previous meeting that the purpose of the first offer was to use the building for “light industrial” use.
According to White, the second proposed buyer “wasn’t able to communicate what his purpose was.”
The board voted on Oct. 14 to direct the district’s solicitor to draft an official agreement to sell the facility for $115,000. White said the agreement will include parameters on what the building could be used for in the future, which can be agreed upon by the district and the city of Butler.
Butler Middle School closed at the end of the 2021-22 school year. It is 180,000 square feet, and White said the rough estimate to demolish the building would be in the range of $2 million. Heather Bonzo, the school district’s director of finance, said the annual utility costs on the building are around $197,000.
At the time of the school’s closing, the district was in talks to sell the building to Pittsburgh Gateways for $1, but the agreement fell through. Other efforts to sell the building over the past two years also have not materialized.
“Our interest remains the same. We can’t carry this building, the utility cost are just not feasible for us to continue,” White said. “We don’t want the building to fall apart into disrepair because it would create a whole in the center of the city and we don’t want to see that. So we need someone who has a viable bid.”
