By Regina Dennis

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Waco school board members say they will examine ways to reuse empty school campuses instead of letting them sit idle like R.L. Smith and Sanger Avenue elementaries have for years.

G.L. Wiley Middle School was closed to students this year, but the building has been used in the months since.

Wiley was used as a shelter last month when thousands of Texans fled Hurricane Ike. The building, which has an auditorium with theater seating, has also been used for meetings and professional development since it quit serving students.

School board member Pat Atkins said the board has not discussed future plans for Wiley, which the board voted to close in August after the school was rated academically unacceptable for the fifth consecutive year. He said the board will soon evaluate its long-term goals to determine how the empty campus could fit in with the vision for the district, but added that “there is some feeling that something needs to be done with the school soon.”

“On one hand, we don’t want to see the property begin to deteriorate, and we would like to have an immediate use for that property,” Atkins said. “On the other hand, we’re going through that strategic planning, and we don’t want to make a decision now that would preclude us from finding a much better use for that building as we go through that process.”

Doris Miller Elementary will be closed after a new East Waco elementary school is built at the J.H. Hines Elementary campus to consolidate both schools.

David Schleicher, board president for the Waco Independent School District, said there are no definite ideas for what to do with Doris Miller, but that it would ideally be transformed for some district use.

“If there is some other school that is being built we might put students (from those schools) at campuses not being used,” Schleicher said.

The school district’s pattern has been to hold on to vacant buildings for decades in hopes of somehow recycling them before opting to sell them. R.L. Smith, Sanger Avenue and the former Waco High were vacated in 1972.

Smith was last regularly used when it housed Emma L. Harrison Charter School, which opened in 1998 and was closed by the state in 1999. It has been red-tagged — deemed unfit for use — by the city, which has been unsuccessful in getting the owner to keep up the property. The McLennan County Appraisal District also lifted the property’s tax-exempt status and will send out a bill to the owners this year for the first time since the campus closed.

Sanger Avenue hosted a Head Start program for a while after it closed, but now owner John McNamara is paying for routine maintenance on the deteriorating building and hoping a buyer will come along to put it to a new use.

After its closure in 1972, the old Waco High on Columbus Avenue and Eighth Street served a variety of uses.

The former Waco High building was last used for the Ollie Mae Moen Discovery Museum, until the center relocated in 2000. The Waco Boxing Club used an outbuilding until early this year.

Landmark Assets Services, Inc., is hoping to buy the property to build 104 loft-style affordable apartment units, but the firm is still trying to nail down financing.

Landmark has asked the school board for yet another extension on payment, through Dec. 31. The board decided Thursday night to ask for another $100,000 within five days from the developers in order to grant the extension. If the note is not paid by Dec. 31, the school district will proceed with foreclosure.

Atkins said he could not speculate on why former boards opted to keep unused buildings for years at a time, but said current school board’s strategic planning looks at the district’s future for the next three to five years to decide whether to keep old buildings or mark them as surplus.

Schleicher said the school board will carefully analyze whether or not a potential buyer is able to execute a proposed plan for a building in the future before proceeding with a sale. He added that he would personally rather see Doris Miller Elementary torn down than stand vacant for years.

“My goal is to make sure it does not become another R.L. Smith,” Schleicher said. “I don’t want that to happen.”

rdennis@wacotrib.com

757-5755