Investor trying to resell Cortland school building
ON THE MARKET? The Missouri man who purchased Cortland Elementary at auction for $10,000 recently bought a similar school building in Lima, Ohio, and re-sold it on eBay at a $40,000 profit.
By Ed Runyan
The building is within a mostly residential neighborhood.
CORTLAND — The investor who bought the former Cortland Elementary School on Park Avenue at auction in November is apparently marketing the building and trying to resell it, while the school district continues to negotiate with the city of Cortland to sell the former school playground across the street.
Robert Wilson, Lakeview superintendent, said the school district expects to reach an agreement in the coming weeks to sell the 5.5 acres across Pearl Street from the former school for between $10,000 and $20,000.
The building is within a mostly residential neighborhood just north of Main Street downtown.
“We want to keep it in the city for a green space and a recreation area for Bazetta residents and Cortland residents,” Wilson said of the land that served as school playground and soccer fields for the Lakeview Optimist Soccer Association.
Dave Christner, chairman of the Cortland Parks Board and an officer in the Lakeview Athletic Boosters, said the playground contains six fields used for youth soccer games. It also contains one baseball field used on a regular basis.
Christner said he doesn’t know what the city will do if the parking lot at the school is no longer available for use by those attending soccer and baseball games, but one option will be to try to work out a parking agreement with the new owner.
Even if the parking lot is lost, the parks board believes the playground is worth preserving for green space, Christner said.
The school district sold the building at auction in November to the lone bidder, investor George Duncan of Meadville, Mo., for $10,000.
The 132-year-old former high school and elementary building contains large amounts of asbestos, a building product widely used in the United States but later determined to be harmful.
The asbestos was covered to protect the occupants of the building, but the cost of demolishing the building is estimated at around $1 million, $800,000 of which would result from the removal of the asbestos, officials have said.
“The good thing for us that we don’t have to pay utilities and maintenance on it,” Wilson said of selling the building shortly after closing it. Students who were housed in the building last year were distributed to the district’s other three buildings in a cost-cutting move.
The superintendent said he has heard that the current owner is trying to resell the former school building.
Wilson said he doesn’t know what use Duncan will find for the building. A phone number for Duncan or his company could not be found.
In March 2009, Duncan, who went by the name George and Gayla Properties LLC, paid $30,000 at auction for the former Roosevelt School in Lima, Ohio, and resold it on eBay in April for $70,300 to David Yermian of Beverly Hills, Calif., according to records.
Amy Sackman Odum, director of Community Development for the city of Lima, which is between Dayton and Toledo, said there has been discussion of Yermian’s trying to develop the building into a nursing school, but so far nothing has occurred.
The building is within a residential neighborhood, Odum said. The property has remained in good condition since the school district sold it, Odum said.
A community group in Lima contacted Yermian regarding the property shortly after he purchased it, Odum said, and discussed its concerns and offered to assist him with his project.