Another Costly School Lesson

Just how many millions of much-needed dollars did the Seattle School District blow off with its latest real estate boondoggle, old Queen Anne High School? We now have a better idea. The district leased the school in 1986 to a developer who converted it to apartments and last year sold it to another developer for $25 million as a condo conversion. The district of course gets a cut of the total sales. But, due to a flawed contract, it will earn a paltry 12 percent for its valuable property. District leaders claimed they were legally wedged in, to which State Auditor Brian Sonntag said nonsense. He told KUOW in July the district mishandled the deal and likely violated state law in the process.

A week ago, the Queen Anne High School Condominiums opened for business - as a Seattle Times advertising department story (on the P-I's New Homes page) put it: "...the classrooms have been re-imagined as classic condominium residences...Each of these 137 homes is an original, with echoes of the past that might include original moldings, chalkboards, hardwood floors, arched windows and 16-foot ceilings." Selling prices: $300,000 to just over $1 million - on average about $450,000 per unit. Using the average, that's $61,650,000 for the taxpayers' former school. The taxpayer/district cut? About $7.3 million. It's that deja vu ($50 million District Headquarters Building boondoggle) all over again thing.