YOUR AD HERE »

Texas company makes offer on Kingsbury Middle School

Rachel Spacek
rspacek@recordcourier.com
The former Kingsbury Middle School in Zephyr Cove, seen in this file photo, is back on the market after plans to demolish it to make room for affordable housing fell through in July.
Dylan Silver / Tribune File Photo |

A Texas company has offered $3.75 million for Kingsbury Middle School, according to the Douglas County School District.

School Board trustees accepted the offer from Pioneer Mountain on Tuesday, Jan. 9, according to Superintendent Teri White.

It was one of two offers school board trustees received during the meeting. A second offer came from California-based Vintage Housing Inc., however, the offer was lower than Pioneer Mountain’s and the board is bound to take the highest offer.



A representative from Pioneer Mountain told the board the company intended to develop a Christian-based center for young people ages 5-23, but did not give any more information.

The company has a 75-day due-diligence period, where they investigate the property before completing the purchase.



White said the company has been looking at the property for years and is already familiar with the zoning and other details. She said the company wouldn’t have a problem with a short due-diligence period.

Pioneer Mountain must close the deal 10 days after the due-diligence period. White said she is hoping to have a closed deal at the end of May.

“They put down the $50,000 deposit and from what we know they have the financial backing,” White said. “The representative told us they have purchased a number of properties at the Lake.”

White said if the purchase goes through, the funds would go into the district’s capital improvements budget, an area she said desperately needs funds to complete other district-wide projects.

The shuttered Kingsbury Middle School is one of three Douglas County schools in the Lake Tahoe Basin. Whittell High and Zephyr Cove Elementary schools are located next door to one another.

The Kingsbury property has gone through a series of problems since it was put up for sale in January 2012. The property received its first offer in July 2016, but fell out of escrow in July 2017. Lake Parkway, a Glenbrook-based company, made an offer on the property for $3.15 million.

It had hoped to use the property to construct 420 units of affordable housing.

The school board extended the escrow in November 2016 for five months to allow the buyer time to prepare for a traffic study on the property, but denied another extension when the company failed to complete the purchase.

Last month, the board put the property back on the market for $3.45 million.

Kingsbury Middle School was first opened from 1976 to 2008.

It was built for $1.6 million to help with the then-burgeoning population at Lake Tahoe. Previous reporting by The Record-Courier said the school opened at peak enrollment time at the Lake, but since then the Douglas County student population at the Lake has been dropping.

The school property was originally put up for $4 million and didn’t receive any offers until Lake Parkway in 2015.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around the Lake Tahoe Basin and beyond make the Tahoe Tribune's work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Your donation will help us continue to cover COVID-19 and our other vital local news.