PORT ELLIOT - Almost exactly two years after the last students packed up their desks and left, the former Port Elliot Primary School site is to be sold.
The State Government has engaged real estate agents McGees Property to handle the sale and expressions of interest in the property and a nearby house are being sought.
The 10,500m2 site was estimated to be worth about $2million in 2008 but neither McGees nor the government’s Land Management Corporation would speculate about the price that it could attract.
The sale includes the entire site of the old school (including the heritage-listed school house), the old kindergarten and the playing fields and the fibro home on the opposite corner of North Terrace and Frederick Street, which was previously a principal’s residence.
“It’s a great opportunity for someone to do a nice development and enhance the area,” said Chris White of the LMC.
“The market will determine the value.”
Advertising for the site describes it as an “exciting opportunity for residential, retirement, subdivision”.
The Alexandrina Council previously lodged expressions of interest in the site and recently explored the option of buying one allotment with the original schoolhouse and establishing a community centre.
“There’s several reasons why it didn’t go ahead,” the Alexandrina mayor, Kym McHugh, said.
“There was the cost of setting up and then we had no propositions from the community for uses.
“We have already got the institute and the RSL which are probably underutilised anyway.”
The state government had also informed the council that it would be required to pay the full commercial value for the site but would be restricted from using it for any other purpose apart from that of a community centre.
Mr McHugh said the council had also discovered that “quite a bit of money” would need to be spent on the historic building to bring it up to standard.
He said the building, which is on the local heritage register, should be protected and he was confident that the minister in charge of the sale would make sure that it was.
Mr McHugh said the council did not have a preference for the future use of the site.
“There is a need for more retail and marking in the centre of town,” he said, adding that any change to the use of the site would need to go through the planning approval processes.
Local historian, Lorraine Pomery, who herself attended the school in the 1930s, said the Port Elliot branch of the National Trust was concerned about the future of the historic buildings on the site.
“The bluestone building was built in 1880 and the brick one in 1914,” she said.
“It is heritage listed and, as far as I understand it, it can’t be demolished.
“But we would want it to be kept as something the community used.
“It’s in such a good position for something like a tourist office, which is badly needed in Port Elliot.
“The old school really is part of the history of the area.”
Expressions of interest in the properties close at 4pm on July 2.
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