Bidding War Feared as Santa Ana Tries to Buy Nearby School

In an unusual move, Santa Ana Unified--a rapidly growing school district--is trying to buy a surplus school from Tustin Unified next door, where enrollment is declining.

Tustin Unified will auction the 18-year-old elementary school Monday night, and a bidding war may occur. A church is reportedly also seeking to buy the school.

“Yes, I’ve heard that a church wants to buy the building and use it for a school, and this pleases us in Tustin, as the price the building sells for will probably be higher now,” said Lawrence Sutherland, manager of support services for Tustin Unified.

Tustin Unified plans to use money to refurbish other schools. The minimum bid must be $2.5 million, Sutherland said.

The school building to be auctioned is on 9 acres at 1951 N. Mabury St. in the northeast corner of Santa Ana, near the Tustin city limits. Santa Ana, while mainly served by Santa Ana Unified schools, has pockets of the Tustin Unified and Garden Grove Unified school districts within its boundaries. “We badly need this school building, and the district is already leasing it from Tustin and using it for a school,” said Anthony Dalessi, an assistant superintendent at Santa Ana Unified.

Tustin Unified called the building Wallace School before it closed because of declining enrollment 6 years ago. Santa Ana Unified calls the same building John Muir Fundamental School. It has an enrollment of 400 students.

“Fundamental schools” in Santa Ana Unified are optional, alternative schools that stress the basics in education and have strict discipline and formal dress codes. Most of them have a waiting list.

If Santa Ana Unified wins the bidding Monday night, the district faces a severe problem next fall of where to put the Muir students, Dalessi said. All existing schools in the district are overflowing, he said.

“We wouldn’t disband John Muir School if we lost the building,” Dalessi said, “but we would be faced with finding a new building.” If Santa Ana loses the bidding, it would have to vacate by June and find a new site for the fundamental school by September, he said.

Santa Ana Unified has one of the most explosive enrollment growths in the state. It has been expanding by about 1,000 new students a year for more than 10 years. To keep up with the growth, the school district plans to build 22 new schools in the next 5 years.

“If we could buy this existing school, it would be a bargain for the taxpayers,” Dalessi said. “We would be buying a school, rather than having to build one.”

Building a school would cost about twice as much, “even if land were available,” he said and declined to disclose what Santa Ana is prepared to pay.

The sealed bids will be opened during a meeting of the Tustin Unified School Board Monday night. Oral bids will then be accepted, Sutherland said. Any oral bid must exceed the high sealed bid by at least 5%.

The identity of the church reportedly seeking to bid on the school site was not disclosed. Sutherland said that he had received no sealed bids as of Thursday and that “this isn’t unusual; we expect to get all the bids brought to the meeting Monday night.”

Dalessi said if Santa Ana Unified succeeds, it will build new additions, more than doubling the size of the existing structure.