Despite tough financial times, DeKalb County school officials are hanging on to a property that could be worth nearly $20 million.
The county school board decided Monday not to sell Adams Stadium and some of the school system’s adjoining land. The land near the clogged intersection of North Druid Hills and Briarcliff roads was the subject of a bitter fight between nearby residents, the school system and a commercial developer a half decade ago when real estate was booming.
Sembler Co. proposed a small city of stores, restaurants, offices and homes there, but faced fierce opposition from opponents who feared increased traffic. The collapse of the economy killed the deal.
Now, with the school system’s wallet lightened by years of property tax declines, Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson proposed selling the property again.
But the school board voted 6-1 against the idea Monday, with one member abstaining and another absent.
With other North DeKalb high schools bursting with students, board member Paul Womack said, “that campus is the only campus that we have in the middle of DeKalb where we can build a future school.” He said it was recently appraised at $18 million.
The board agreed, however, to sell other tracts with old buildings, voting unanimously to put Avondale High School, the Heritage Center, Hooper Alexander Elementary and the former administrative headquarters on a “surplus” list.
Atkinson said last week that she had no immediate buyer for the Adams Stadium property, but wanted to put it in circulation. “You know there’s always interest,” she told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “but until you go through the process and you really sit down and somebody’s ready to sign on the dotted line, I never say there’s a buyer.”
School board chairman Eugene Walker said DeKalb no longer needed the property nor the adjacent International Student Center.
Earlier this year, a broker for the Department of Veterans Affairs approached DeKalb, saying the federal agency wanted about a dozen acres to build a health-care facility there. The broker told the AJC in June that the land was probably worth $800,000 to $1 million an acre, far below the more than $60 million Sembler was reportedly offering back in 2006 for a larger 39-acre swath there.
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