When I saw the legal notice of sale in Saturday's Chronicle, my first thought was,
"Who's running the insane asylum over at the real estate department of HISD?"
Followed by:
"And are they so in love with "Build it and they will come" that they've forgotten their fundamentals, e.g. the second part of "Buy low and Sell High?"
It's not that the price is wrong. Minimum bid is $335,000.
I was thinking "Now is wrong. Why now?"
Followed by: "Why not about 5 years ago when developers were flush with other people's money?"
This school sits on a triangular 1 acre lot at the corner of Telephone Road and Baird, near Lockwood Drive.
The new Cage Elementary was built over 25 years ago, so in the last 10 years HISD would have had plenty of opportunity to sell high.
According to archives of the Eastwood Neigborhood Association,
HISD tried to solicit bids for Cage in December 2004.
I take back the Insane Asylum comment, ok?
Here's the Eastwood newsletter information about community protest and Cage Elementary.
So today, I checked HISD's website and did not find Cage on their list of properties for sale.
Strange, since the newspaper notice was from Saturday's paper.
Next, I used the interactive map on HISD's website and found it!
And, it's shown as SOLD to Historic Houston.org. No sales price disclosed.
So why the notice in Saturday's paper?
According to Historic Houston's website they move historically significant buildings, and also dismantle them.
Yikes, I'm hoping the future of Cage Elementary is neither one of these.
I'm hoping residential, maybe SRO. Anything except a gaming room, a pawn shop or a nail salon.
Here's one of Cage's residential neighbor directly behind it on Baird Street.
In 1894 Rufus Cage donated the land on Telephone Road where the Kirby School was built in 1902.
In 1906 the school moved across the street into a new building which they named "Rufus Cage Elementary".
Don't worry, Rufus, the bell doesn't toll for you. It's just that recess is over.
According to the legal notice, bids will be accepted (and then trashed?) until 2pm on June 15, 2010.
2 comments:
The Savior was kicked out of town for running off with residents money.
John Peeler?
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