The Allentown School Board voted Thursday to pursue selling two of its vacant properties — McKinley and Cleveland elementary schools — to charitable organizations, rescinding previous June resolutions to sell the schools by sealed bid.
The votes to rescind the sealed bid resolutions for the two former elementary schools came after a joint letter from nonprofit leaders at Community Action Lehigh Valley and Ripple Community Inc. asked Superintendent John Stanford and the school board to reconsider its action.
McKinley and Cleveland were both built in the 1880s and closed in 2020 after Hays Elementary replaced them. The school buildings, which are located between Seventh and 12th streets, had issues including moisture in the walls, unsecured entrances and no elevators.
Community Action Lehigh Valley wants the chance to repurpose the site of Cleveland Elementary to create a youth center, including courts and fields for sports, classrooms for homework help and satellite offices for other local nonprofits.
Ripple Community Inc. hopes to build at least 40 affordable housing units on the site of McKinley Elementary.
The board voted 7-1 and 6-2 to pursue selling the properties of McKinley and Cleveland, respectively, to charitable organizations.
“If we had made the sealed bid, the highest bidder would have been the one to get the bid, so we wanted to make sure it was a fair, open process for everybody, and they had the opportunity to officially compete,” board President Nancy Wilt said.
Wilt, along with Vice President Lisa Conover and board members Audrey Mathison, Patrick Palmer, Charlie Thiel and Jennifer Lynn Ortiz, voted to approve the motions for both schools. Phoebe Harris voted to approve the motion for McKinley Elementary, but accidentally voted against the Cleveland Elementary motion, she said. Nick Miller voted against both motions in favor of instead sticking with a sealed bid process for both properties. LaTarsha Brown was absent.
“We’re just grateful to the district for being able to prioritize the community in this process,” said Sherri Brokopp Binder, executive director of Ripple Community Inc.
Dawn Godshall, executive director of Community Action Lehigh Valley, said she was also grateful to the district and excited for her organization to make an offer for the Cleveland site.
Brokopp Binder and Godshall acknowledged the board’s Thursday votes do not guarantee their organizations will be chosen as the buyers of the elementary schools. But both are hopeful about the future of the sites after about two years of advocating before the board and district administration.
If all goes as they hope, Brokopp Binder and Godshall envision a proposed youth center and affordable housing units working in tandem to fulfill critical needs for the community.
Families living in the affordable housing units could send their children to the youth center, and people leaving Community Action’s Sixth Street Shelter could seek permanent housing at Ripple’s proposed Turner Street site.
“We can collaborate down the road,” Godshall said. “I’m hoping that we have a longer future relationship together.”
Godshall and Brokopp Binder said neither organization has started a capital campaign because they are not guaranteed the district locations. But Godshall anticipates needing $12 million to build the proposed youth center, and Brokopp Binder said affordable housing would cost about $15 million.
The school board said selling Cleveland and McKinley to charitable organizations — whichever they may be — would still allow the district to deed restrict the properties.
Deed restriction has been discussed by the board at past meetings as a way to prevent charter schools from buying the properties in the future, opening in the district and enrolling students from Allentown’s schools.
The district has to designate money in its annual budget to pay tuition to charter schools located in the district based on enrollment numbers.
The board also agreed Thursday to vote on the schematic design for the district’s new middle school — East Side Middle School — at the next board meeting on Aug. 25.
The middle school, which can serve up to 900 students, will sit behind Mosser Elementary School, creating the district’s first kindergarten-through-eighth grade campus.
Once built, East Side Middle School will serve as a “swing space” for students from Harrison Morton Middle School while that school is replaced.
East Side Middle School will have a three-story academic wing and another wing with gymnasiums, cafeterias and an auditorium. The middle school will cost $80.9 million. Renovations to Mosser Elementary, along with the middle school construction costs and other additional costs, will bring the project total cost for the district’s Mosser Woods site to about $98.3 million.
Morning Call reporter Jenny Roberts can be reached at 484-903-1732 and jroberts@mcall.com.
