Ideas to repurpose the recently closed North Star Elementary school are being considered by a group of Kodiak Island Borough Assembly and School Board members.
Two members of the Borough Assembly, Borough Mayor Scott Arndt and two members of the Kodiak Island Borough School District Board of Education makeup the North Star facility work group, which just held its first meeting on June 3. That includes borough assembly member Larry Ledoux, assembly member Bo Whiteside, school board member Mike Litzow, and school board member Jim Pryor.
On Tuesday, June 3, these five members plus Borough Manager Aimee Williams and school district Superintendent Cyndy Mika met to look at different ideas for the future of the closed elementary school building. Mika said a group of school district staff are consolidating the excess furniture from all elementary schools into North Star and doing lingering maintenance projects.
“And so now we have staff that we have hired through the month of June, comprised of teachers, paraprofessionals and students, workers who are just doing cleanup work at our schools,” she said.
Mika said the goal is to sell all the furniture and surplus school supplies in order to have the old school building completely empty and prepped for the next phase by the end of June. The school district is holding a surplus sale June 24-26 to sell North Star’s remaining furniture and other elementary schools’ excess materials on a first come, first serve basis.
But what that phase will be is currently undecided. Williams said lots of organizations have contacted the borough with interest in using the school building for a variety of purposes.
“There was putting a pool in the cafeteria for more child safety lessons. There was a children’s museum, which I think is great," Williams said. "I’ve been contacted by some nonprofits; talk about a WeWork space, where people come in and have office space where they don’t have offices here.”
Assembly member Ledoux mentioned during the work group meeting that he’s been approached by a local organization looking to set up a preschool in the North Star building. Similarly, the YMCA of Alaska has expressed interest in the building and signed a memorandum of agreement [MOA] with the school district last week to provide after school programs at the remaining three local elementary schools starting this fall.
Other organizations are interested in offering preschool and after school programs, but whether those organizations would be willing to pay rent and sign a lease is unknown. Borough Mayor Scott Arndt said there are no plans to sell the building any time soon. Whatever the future use of the building, the Borough said it will continue to serve as the emergency shelter for Kodiak residents who live in the area.
He and Williams said the borough is interested in keeping the gym intact and potentially maintaining storage space at North Star. That means at least the borough and the school district will need to pay for utilities and building maintenance with regular janitorial services for any of the spaces used. On Tuesday night Arndt went over two possibilities to cover those costs through a proposed three-year plan.
“One is the Kodiak Island Borough and the Kodiak Borough School District splitting it half and half," Arndt explained. "And the other one is the Kodiak Island Borough, Kodiak Island Borough School District and the City of Kodiak basically in thirds, on there.”
The work group, which does not currently include representatives from the city, supported moving forward with the borough, the school district and the city to split the basic building costs equally. The borough estimates that it would cost a total of $90,000 annually for janitorial services alone which would then be broken down into $30,000 payments for each of the three entities. The borough is also moving forward with paying for roof improvements to the skylight at North Star so that it will not leak and cause future damage.
All three bodies, the Borough Assembly, the City Council and the School Board of Education, will each have to approve the plan at their upcoming respective meetings this summer.
The borough’s proposed timeline is to have a financial commitment from all three groups in place in August. The school district is set to be completely vacated from the North Star building by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.
