KSHB 41 News reporter Braden Bates covers parts of Jackson County, Missouri, including Lee's Summit. Send Braden a story idea by e-mail.
The Kansas City Public School District is moving closer to a plan for the future of the closed Bryant Elementary School after the deadline for developer proposals passed on April 9.
The building, constructed in 1915, closed in 2009. The district recently put the property on the market with developers able to submit proposals.
"We decided to go ahead and put it on the market and open it up for a variety of proposals," said Jesse Lange the manager of planning an real estate for KCPS.
He said the district found restrictions tied to the land that limit its what can be done on the land to either school use or single-family homes.
"We discovered some restrictions that ran with the land so it made the use process a little more tricky," Lange said.
While it is an old school building the district said it's not interested in keeping the property.
"We don’t need this facility for education anymore but also, there are some other things we can potentially do with it," Lange said.
The district heavily explored staff housing as an option, but it will depend on the proposals submitted by developers. If the developers don't go that route, the building could face demolition.
"We thought that, that would be a nice carrot to offer folks to be able to have a teacher housing option," Lange said.
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Lange noted that teacher housing is not off the table for the district.
"Right especially since there are other sites available as well. There will be other sites even coming online in the near future as well," Lange said.
With the April 9 deadline passed, the district will review the options to bring clearer plans to the neighborhood. Residents can expect to hear more about developer plans in late spring or early summer.
"I think folks are really excited about this next phase where we’re actually going to bring them a proposal with specifics. It’s really hard to just talk about concepts and ideas because there’s a lot of unknown," Lange said.
There we also questions about funding for the property. The developer who's selected by the district will purchase the property and privately fund the development.
Lange said if staff housing is what's selected, he could see the funding coming from a private, public partnership.
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