Stafford turns to eBay to sell its high school

By JERRY BUXTON Reporter Great Bend (Kan.) Tribune jbuxton@gbtribune.com

STAFFORD — The former Stafford High School building, about 89 years old, has been placed for sale on eBay. It has stood empty since teachers, students and administrators moved into the new high school building in 1999.

The USD 349 Board of Education has considered several possible options for the building, but none of them panned out. The decision to place the building for sale on eBay was a painful and close one, with the board voting 4-3 to get in touch with Mid West eServices of Salina, the mediating firm in the procedure.

Whether to demolish or try to sell the building became an issue in the community, too, according to a St. John News story. The three-story, brick school building is 31,363 square feet. The posted list price on eBay is $75,000. It was set after consultations with the Salina firm, and is not necessarily a firm figure, according to Mary Jo Taylor, USD 349 superintendent.

She said, “The main concern of the board is to find a reliable buyer with a concern for the community that is capable of doing something with the building that will be good for the community.”
The eBay listing reads, in part, “Many successful people have learned the value of basing their operations in small Kansas communities where the cost of living and overhead expenses are low, work ethic is strong and pace of life is a little slower.”

Anyone interested in seeing the listing should go to www.ebay.com and search for “Stafford High School.” An old school building in Timken was sold to a California entrepreneur last November, and one in McCracken was sold a few years ago, both by way of eBay. Several other such buildings in Kansas have also reportedly been sold in this manner as well.

Taylor said Thursday that the old building is not ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)-compliant. There are stairs, for instance, but no elevators. “There’s a lot of nostalgia attached, of course, to the building,” she said. After 83 years of use, 1916-1999, just about everyone in Stafford attended classes in the building, and graduated “from it.”

The eBay listing has already gotten 9,136 hits, as of Thursday, and 233 people have put it on their “watched-item” list, Taylor said. This makes it easier for them to return quickly to the site and “see how the auction is going,” she said. Taylor said it is a 90-day auction — the listing was posted in mid-January and will be “up” until mid-April. “Some bids have been made, but we’re going to wait until the full time, the 90 days, is up.”

She said the district paid eBay something over $300 to post the 90-day listing. Mid West eServices was paid $500 for its initial work, creating the ad for eBay, taking pictures to place in that ad, etc. Mid West will receive a 4-percent commission on the sale price, if the building is sold on eBay. If it is not sold, the Salina company will receive nothing except the initial $500. There’s also a link to the Kansas Department of Commerce on the website, Taylor said.

The price asked, $75,000, amounts to $2.39 per square foot. The building is at 318 West Broadway. It, along with an annex building, sits on a 3.28-acre lot. The annex building is also offered for sale, but is not included in the current asking price. It will not be sold separately, according to information on the website. Prospective buyers can buy one building or two, but if they buy only one, it would have to be the old high school.