The Lakeview School property is an action item on Montezuma-Cortez’s regular board meeting Tuesday.
It follows an Aug. 3 work session discussion about revitalizing the district’s structures.
The board was presented with a few options concerning Lakeview School, which closed in 2008.
The district can keep it as a space for storage and meetings, sell or lease it to a party for school-related purposes, ask for 100% of the ownership rights from the property’s current owners or quick-claim the property interest and release itself of ownership, said Kyle Archibeque, executive director of district finance, at the work session.
In 1905, J.H. Mccracken issued a quick-claim deed granting the district ownership of Lakeview.
However, a clause in the agreement stated that if any part of the school’s land be abandoned for public school purposes for a year or longer, Mccracken heirs would have rights to it.
Archibeque said he was summarizing the legal opinions of the district’s general counsel.
“We have a duty to organize that building and get it ready for whatever we want to use it for, whether we’re collapsing it, whether we’re giving it back to the people who gave it to us, the cost of fixing the roof alone — do we really want to invest in something for a storage unit?” said district Superintendent Risha VanderWey.
In that meeting, the school board discussed a previous facilities master plan recommended by an architectural firm the district hired in 2011.
In 2009, a Colorado Department of Education team surveyed the district’s buildings.
“We were talking about how we want to revisit this 2011 plan because we have the same issues with our buildings, because they weren’t really addressed,” said VanderWey at the meeting.
She wants to explore transforming the district’s properties with Archibeque and Raymond Lopez, director of maintenance for the district.
Archibeque handed out copies of the 2011 facilities recommendations to the board.
The recommendations touched on a few different levels of improvement. Costs ran from $45 million to renovate the school to replacing all buildings for $109 million.
Archibeque found the 2011 master plan to still be relevant, although cost estimates are likely outdated, he said.
The group of three will brainstorm and run their ideas for updates through administration and then have further conversations with the board and community, Archibeque said.
They will then decide if they need to outline a new master plan, or if they can address immediate building needs with the old guide.
The district would need to apply for a Building Excellent Schools Today grant and state matching to pull off the renovations, he said.
“When you have a clear plan on what you’re going to do to fix your house, then you get all those things done, and this is our house for many, many children and they deserve a place that’s adequately fixed up for them,” said VanderWey.
