Fayetteville School Board Receives $60 million Option for High School Campus

As I mentioned in my blog June 8, Fayetteville School Board offered to sell its 40-acre high school campus to University of Arkansas for $59 million. U of A officials responded with a counter offer of $50 million. The school board took no further action, deciding more time was needed to consider terms of U of A’s offer.

Now a limited liability corporation has come forward with a request for a 90-day option on the property. The usual reason for an option is to allow time to evaluate the property and consider conditions of sale.

If the board accepts the option, it could not sell the property to anyone else during that time. The corporation would have the exclusive right to buy the property for $60 million, a $10 million increase over U of A’s offer.

However, the corporation would not be obligated to go through with the purchase.

As of this writing, the school board has not taken any action on the latest offer, citing a need for more information.

U of A was caught offguard by the corporation’s request. It will be interesting to see how the university responds in light of the fact that its offer was already $9 million short of the asking price.

So now another opportunity of sorts is on the table. $60 million over $50 million means $10 million taxpayers would not have to come up with to build a new high school – if everything falls into place and the corporation does indeed buy the campus. At this point, that’s a big IF.

Do I hear $70 million? Anyone?

For more information:

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2008/06/26/news/062708fzfayschoolbrd.txt
http://www.nwarktimes.com/nwat/News/66578/