FRANKFORT, Maine — For sale: One 15,000-square-foot home, complete with 24 acres, a gymnasium and a cafeteria.
At $249,000, that works out to nearly $17 per square foot — the memories of decades of learning, recess and cutthroat grade school basketball games that took place in that gym are free.
Two years after the Frankfort Elementary School shut its doors to students, the town has put it on the market and is hoping to find a buyer soon. That’s likely, according to Phil Adams of Adams Real Estate in Bangor, who said he already has had inquiries and has shown the school, which has been listed both as a single-family home and as a commercial property.
“I thought right away it would be a neat place to live,” Adams said this week. “Of course, I’m a big fan of HGTV. I’ve seen homes made in silos and churches. I don’t think it’s so far-fetched that someone might want a home with its own gymnasium. I think it’s a unique property and that people should consider living in it.”
The school was built in 1970 and until 2013 was the place residents described as the heart of their small, rural community. But when Frankfort residents decided to leave Regional School Unit 20 and join Hampden, Winterport and Newburgh in School Administrative District 22, the kindergarten through fifth-grade school on the North Searsport Road closed.
“It’s awful the school had to close,” Evelyn Adams, a Frankfort Select Board member with no relation to the real estate agent, said Friday. “But we’ve gotten positive feedback from the kids at SAD 22.”
Evelyn Adams pointed out that the Frankfort Elementary School is not alone in the state in having closed its school, and she connected the closures to the controversial 2008 school consolidation law.
“There are many, many schools this has happened to — not just ours,” she said. “It was not a good idea, I don’t think. I don’t think it saved any money like it was supposed to do.”
After the school closed, it was used for a while as the temporary town office, while town officials did renovations at the usual town office in Frankfort village. Evelyn Adams said the town then tried to lease the building, but there were no takers. Voters this March at annual town meeting decided to put it on the market.
“Hopefully it will be developed into an asset for the town,” she said.
According to Phil Adams, the structure is priced to sell. He has heard from interested people from as far away as California; some who have come to check out the property have brought contractors with them. While one man expressed interest in living in the school, the real estate agent said it was fair to say most people have looked at it for more of a commercial use, trying to take advantage of all the rooms and bathrooms. Several Frankfort residents have said they would love to see it become a senior housing complex or some kind of assisted living center. Phil Adams said the seller — the town — has been very cooperative.
“The goal is to have that property sold this summer. No one wants to see the property sit there over the winter. We’re doing everything we can to realize a sale,” he said. “I would say that selling a school would rank up there with one of the more unusual [properties] I’ve had in 25 years of business. It’s made fun because it’s a wonderful building and it’s a wonderful town. Whoever buys that is really going to have a gem, because it’s in an area where the people are really nice and the building is in good shape. It’s a diamond in the rough.”