Old U-Hi Faces Uncertain Future

Thu., Nov. 30, 2000

By Marny Lombard marnyl@spokesman.com (509) 927-2166

For sale or lease: one used high school. Includes 23 acres, good athletic facilities. Most buildings need improvements.

Central Valley School District officials are wondering what to do with the old University High School.

Students will vacate the campus in a year and a half. Officials must then sell or lease the 23-acre site. They’d rather sell.

“Our business is education, not real estate,” Central Valley School Board Chairman Craig Holmes told members of the Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce earlier this week.

Several entities have looked at the facility, including Educational Service District 101, which recently bought property from KHQ-TV on the South Hill. Sunshine Health Facilities, next door to U-Hi, has also considered the site. The cost of updating the buildings is a concern, representatives have said.

The district valued the U-Hi campus at $4 million in 1998. A more up-to-date value is being sought.

What about using the old U-Hi as a new city hall if the Valley incorporates? Or a new church? Or a community center for a new complex of high rise apartments?

Those suggestions came from Chuck Stocker, chairman of the Valley Chamber’s public policy committee. Holmes and Central Valley Superintendent Wally Stanley spoke to the committee on Monday.

Stocker offered his ideas as food for thought, after which Stanley jumped in:

“Yeah, then our city football team would have a good place to practice,” he quipped.

Stanley suggested that a public-private partnership for the site would be to the advantage of the school district, especially one that would allow the community to keep using the athletic facilities at U-Hi.

The idea of the Community Colleges of Spokane or Eastern Washington University leasing the site as a branch campus received support, especially from Holmes. He spoke in favor of using the campus for Running Start classes.

The U-Hi site cannot continue as a Central Valley kindergarten through 12th-grade school, under the terms of a funding agreement with the state. The district will receive $11.5 million from the state, reimbursing the district for replacing the school. That money, plus an equal amount for Central Valley High School, will pay for remodeling six other schools in coming years.

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