School Board members voted unanimously Thursday night to purchase three of the six commercial condominium units in the former Ted Brown Music building on Broadway in downtown Tacoma for a little more than $3.9 million.

The district has been leasing the 20,281-square-foot space for about $30,000 a month. The district earlier spent $2 million to remodel the space into classrooms.

A soft real estate market that favors buyers, coupled with the prospect of indefinitely making monthly lease payments to house a permanent program, were among the factors prompting the decision to buy, board President Jim Dugan said in an interview.

The price works out to $200 per square foot in contrast to five other comparable commercial buildings in downtown Tacoma with an average square footage price of $240, board member Debbie Winskill said.

The sale price is also lower than the $4.7 million the owners proposed in March, attorney Mark Hood wrote Thursday in a letter summarizing key points of the proposed sale.

The building, owned by Broadway Center Investors LLC, is among three sites that make up Tacoma School of the Arts. The seven-year-old arts high school enrolls about 430 students.

The purchase option under the Heritage Building lease sets the sale price at the fair market value as determined by a jointly agreed-upon appraiser, Hood’s letter to the district said.

In May, Trueman and Associates appraised the space at $3.75 million.

The purchase price was the appraised value plus $215,298 to cover some of the improvements the owner made at the district’s request. The district paid for a second opinion on the appraisal.

Also Thursday, the board approved a general fund budget of nearly $322.3 million for the 2008-09 school year. Administrators closed a nearly $6 million projected shortfall by using money left over from this year’s budget and dipping into reserves. Earlier, district officials warned that next year’s budget scenario will probably require cuts to instructional programs.

At Thursday’s meeting, members of a newly formed citizens group, Stand for Children, thanked the board for keeping intact instructional programs. They asked the board to commission an independent curriculum management audit to help determine the most effective and efficient means to teach students.

“We’d like to see a plan in place so that if you do need to make cuts next year, you can make educated decisions on how to do so without compromising student achievement,” parent Matty Green said.

Dugan said in an interview that he told a group representative they could discuss the audit this fall, when the board begins meeting with stakeholders to plan the response if the budget picture worsens.

Debby Abe: 253-597-8694