The Sedona-Oak Creek School District is looking at four bids from potential buyers of Big Park Community School in the Village of Oak Creek.

While the current property for the shuttered school is zoned Residential, Single Family Limited, Sedona-Oak Creek School District Superintendent Tom Swaninger, Ph.D., told the nonprofit Big Park Regional Coordinating Council on Thursday, Feb. 12, no rezoning would be necessary following its sale.

“We didn’t even receive any bids that were requesting that or that we viewed that would require that,” Swaninger said. “If we did, at this moment that’s probably not something we would entertain.”

Carolyn Fisher, a member of the BPRCC nonprofit, said she had discussed with Yavapai County Supervisor Nikki Check [D-District 3] the possibility county leasing out a portion of one of the buildings, which was closed by SOCSD in 2018 due to declining enrollment.

“For them to be able to offer some stuff to the community on that property it might require a zoning change, maybe, the thinking was, it would go to commercial, and I thought the community would be very opposed to rezoning commercial,” Fisher said.

“This past Tuesday we went into executive session to review all of the bids that we had on the property … there were seven bids that we had,” Swaninger said. “Just discussed all of the components, the unique components, of each of the bids and the purpose of that executive session was to decide which were viewed to be viable.”

There were four viable options for which the district is requesting more information, he said. The information would simply tell the district, in more detail, what the plans for the property were.

Being “viable” meant they “met the criteria, had financial backing, was in the reasonable range of what the property was assessed for, it doesn’t necessarily have to meet the exact mark, as with any evaluation of a property, it’s more an art than a science,” he said.

Moving forward, there are still several steps the district wants to take, Swaninger said. First is the information gathering, both from the interested parties and also the community.

He said all the proposals included plans for the property, but the district still had some questions it’s looking to get answered before making a final decision.

“There are local ties to all of the bids that we have requested further information from,” Swaninger said. “Whether they reside locally, … I can’t really say that because some of them are a little bit broader entities than that, but that’s something that we’ll be able to share at a later date.”

A community survey is available on the district’s website, sedonak12.org, or on its Facebook page, which allows community members to share opinions about what they’d like to see for the property. Swaninger said he is also interested in hearing more from the VOC community.

“Those of us, like myself, that live very close to that location, might have maybe stronger feelings and opinions and maybe a little more validity about what they might see from the property,” Swaninger said. “There will be further information and an opportunity to ask questions and give feedback in person,” he said.

Swaninger said the SOCSD Governing Board would likely not go into executive session at the next opportunity, open the meeting and vote on the sale. His goal is to be as open as possible, he said.

Swaninger said he doesn’t want to announce who the bidders are because he doesn’t want to “disrupt the process.”

“The only people that are aware of the details of these proposals at this time are myself, finance director and our board, and our brokers, and those that are making the bids — and also our real estate attorney,” he said.

Swaninger also said there’s a possibility that whoever buys the property will change their mind, although he said he’s not saying he believed they would. Once a buyer purchases the campus, the property is theirs, Swaninger said, but he can only speak for what they’ve told him and the other people involved in the sale, which is that no rezone will be necessary and they will do their best to ensure the community is happy.

“I’m not so naïve to believe that whatever decision is made everybody’s going to be happy with it,” Swaninger said. “But, I do believe and I am very hopeful that we will come to a plan that, for the most part, people are going to be happy with.”