The users of Manitou Community Center are a stubborn bunch, and it may pay off.
On Monday night, they carried on their fight to retain what they consider a venerable community asset, and they gained ground.
Metro Parks board members will likely vote at their next meeting – at 6 p.m. Feb. 13 at park headquarters – on whether to put the old Manitou Elementary School at 4806 S. 66th St. up for sale.
If they do, they could instruct staff to skew the marketing, including price and benefit to the community, to attract a buyer that would fit nicely in the neighborhood – a nonprofit or church, for example.
On paper, it makes sense. The park district would free itself of liability and make a little money.
But on the ground, the neighbors say, losing it would punish them. It would yank glass and clay studio resources unavailable anywhere else in the park system, and it would boot a vital day care center out of a working-class community.
Metro Parks got the old school in a land trade in 1992 when the Tacoma School District built the new school a few blocks west. The original is not much to look at, but it’s busy all the time with art, music, sewing, martial arts, gardening and Girl Scouts.
The skewing of the marketing might be the solution to keeping these activities alive.
Making community benefit the top priority in the disposition of the building could make it possible to sell it to the current users. Park board members were intrigued by the idea on Monday and wanted to talk more about it with Manitou supporters and park staff.
Supporters of the center include the West End and South Tacoma neighborhood councils, and they have between $10,000 and $20,000 to invest. They’d prefer spending it to replace the center’s roof, but they could use it as full or partial payment for the building.
They could manage the center, get the shuttered half back open and attract paying users and grant money to support it. West End council member Ginny Eberhardt said the council has agreed to use its nonprofit status for grant applications as soon as there’s an official plan in place.
It’s an interesting idea – one that retains a unique and well-used asset – and it gets the property off the park district’s books.
One advantage lies in the weakness of the real estate market and the buildings themselves.
In 2009, Metro Parks was given an estimate that the property could fetch $450,000 to $600,000.
Parks management admits that would be a stretch now. The market for old schools, especially those that need repairs and contain asbestos, is dead. A buyer on a budget would look at renovation costs and likely do what potential purchasers of the old Gault Middle School on the East Side have done: Walk away.
There are other empty school buildings in better shape waiting for their next lives, including Wainwright and McKinley elementaries and Baker Middle School. Manitou, with its unsightly buildup of deferred maintenance and neighbors who would fight rezoning it for more intense development, would compete poorly for buyers’ love.
But the current users don’t plan a remodel. The asbestos is fine as long as it’s not disturbed.
Metro Parks’ board members have options here that can benefit the district, and the neighborhood.
They can delay their decision on whether to surplus the building, and continue to pay insurance and other costs on it. But those could add up.
They can put it on the market and hope a buyer sees $450,000 of value in it without a zone change. Good luck with that.
Or they can get out now. They can work with the neighborhood council on a purchase plan. It may include a small payment, with an agreement to pay the district more should neighbors ever sell the property.
In doing so, the park board would affirm a comment one park district employee made on his way out after Monday’s meeting: “Community benefit: It’s priceless.”
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/street
Editor's note: This story was edited to correct the name of the Fircrest school that closed. It is Wainwright Elementary School.
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