WESTMINSTER : Board Approves Plan to Sell Gill School

The Westminster School District board has approved a plan to sell the closed Gill School to residential developers for as much as $6.1 million, giving the district a cash infusion that will allow it to make improvements at other area schools.

The board voted unanimously on Thursday to sell the site, at 15252 Victoria Lane in Huntington Beach, to the Newport Beach-based development firm of Kaufman & Broad, which plans to build several dozen homes on the grounds.

The sale is expected to bring in between $5.3 million and $6.1 million, depending on the number of homes the city approves to be built on the land, district spokeswoman Audrey Brown said.

“This is the best possible deal we could have hoped for. We’ve had a mile-long list of school facilities improvements we’ll now be able to make with the money,” she said.

Those improvements include purchasing portable classrooms for Frank N. Eastwood Elementary School, adding sprinklers to some athletic fields, repaving parking lots and playgrounds, and fixing roofs at campuses, officials said.

Gill School was closed in 1976. The board voted last year to sell the site, as well as the Midway City Elementary School, as excess property. At the time, the sale of both properties was expected to bring in a total of about $6 million, Brown said.

However, last September the board sold Midway City for $3.5 million, bringing the expected income from both sites to about $9 million.

When Gill was designated as excess property last year, residents urged the board to reject any development plan that would include high-density housing in the area.

On Thursday, the trustees emphasized that the board took those concerns into consideration in approving the proposal.

Kaufman & Broad plans to build about 55 detached single-family homes on the 10-acre parcel.

Trustee Ron Morgan said: “This will blend in well in the neighborhood, and it will have a positive impact. We’re very pleased and excited about the project going in there.”