It’s Back to Square 1 for Fayetteville High School

University of Arkansas has withdrawn its offer to purchase the Fayetteville High School. High school officials were taken off guard and were extremely surprised by the move.

The final version of $50 million offer would probably have contained some provisions for the school district to lease back the property while waiting for a new high school to be built. Now, all that is off the table and the district is back to square one.

It’s been a long, convoluted process to get back to the starting point. Space and time do not permit much detail here, but a brief summary will help:

· After lengthy deliberations, extensive research, committee meetings, and input from the public, Fayetteville School Board decided to have one high school grades 9-12.

· A new high school should be built as opposed to remodeling the existing school.

The best location would be the “Morningside” property in south Fayetteville.

The current 40-acre high school campus would be offered to University of Arkansas for $59 million, a sum that fell between independent appraisals conducted by both entities. Deadline for response to the offer was July 1, 2008.

U of A countered on June 6 with its offer of $50 million. The offer did not contain a deadline.

A group of independent investors stepped forward to request a 60-day option on the property. If granted, the option would preclude any other sale during that time. If the investors decided to buy the property, they would pay $60 million.

The school district took no action on the option offer. Subsequently, the investors withdrew their request.

On August 21, citing a decision to not leave the offer in limbo any longer, U of A officials withdrew their $50 million offer to purchase the existing campus.

It’s possible the U of A may reconsider purchasing the property at some point in the future.

Stay tuned for the next move.

For more information:

http://arkansasbusiness.com:80/article.aspx?lID=84&sID=85&ms=86&cID=Z&aID=107448.53153.119574

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2008/08/22/news/082208fzuawithdraws.txt

http://www.nwarktimes.com/adg/News/234962/

http://www.nwarktimes.com/nwat/News/68346/