McHenry District 15 will try again to sell Landmark School after shutting down year-round program

The second time could be the charm for McHenry Elementary School District 15, as it again will try to sell the now-shuttered 131-year-old Landmark School.

The school board agreed this week to collect bids for a second time on the structure after rejecting proposals offered during an earlier request for buyers.

The board agreed after a closed-door meeting Tuesday to once again begin the process of selling the building at 3614 W. Waukegan Road.

A notice of public sale will be published once a week for three weeks to collect sealed bids, according to district documents. Then, the district will open the bids and consider at a future board meeting whether to accept one. Again, the board has the option to reject all of the bids and can withdraw the sale or seek more bids in the future, board President Chad Mihevc said.

Landmark School, which housed a year-round program unique to the district and to McHenry County, held its final day of school June 2 before closing permanently.

During the first attempt at a sale earlier this year, the district received two bids for the school, which were both declined. Southfork Premier Properties LLC offered $20,000 but did not include a closing date or any plans for the property in its bid package, said Jeff Schubert, the district’s chief school business official.

Wauconda-based True North Properties Inc. offered the district $210,000 for the building with a July 31 closing date. The bid packet suggested converting the building into 20 one-bedroom and studio apartments.

True North’s bid packet also added that the “contract for sale is contingent upon the purchaser obtaining zoning approval for its intended use.” The sale would be canceled if the buyer could not get the desired zoning change from the city.

“We don’t feel [the contingency] is in the best interest of the district,” Schubert said in the finance meeting.

Schubert suggested True North – or any other interested bidder – should contact the city of McHenry to begin any zoning change and then rebid in the future. But experts and McHenry Mayor Wayne Jett previously have said that contingencies for this type of purchase are typical.

“We don’t want to change the zoning and then change it again” because plans or buyers change, Jett said.

Currently, the school building has a special-use permit, and the land is zoned for office use. The city also has given the school landmark status, so it cannot be demolished, and any exterior changes must be approved by the Landmark Commission and City Council.

Having deemed the building “unnecessary, unsuitable and inconvenient,” the school board voted last year to permanently close the school and end the year-round program it housed.

“It is in the best interest” of the district to sell the structure, Mihevc said in his motion before the unanimous vote to collect bids for the first time in January.

The district’s engineering consultants last year estimated that it would cost $10 million to $12 million to bring the structure up to standards.