{"id":9626,"date":"2025-10-17T13:04:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/9626\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T13:04:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:04:06","slug":"that-was-not-exciting-former-site-of-oxford-elementary-sold-for-3m-to-real-estate-developer-local-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/9626\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018That was not exciting\u2019: Former site of Oxford Elementary sold for $3M to real estate developer | Local Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Berkeley Unified School District, or BUSD, approved a $3 million bid for the purchase<\/a> of the district\u2019s vacant property at 1130 Oxford St., the former site of Oxford Elementary School, on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bid, made in person at the school board\u2019s regular Wednesday meeting by owner of development firm Panoramic Interests Patrick Kennedy, was the only one made.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Steve Smith, co-owner of Norheim & Yost Commercial Real Estate \u2014 BUSD\u2019s agent for the property \u2014 facilitated the bidding process at the meeting, banging a gavel to end the auction after 26 seconds of bidding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was not exciting,\u201d said BUSD Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The property, a 1.26-acre lot listed for sale at a minimum of $3 million dollars, was listed for \u201cas-is\u201d sale Aug. 5 after BUSD announced<\/a> Oxford Elementary School\u2019s closure in 2019. Oxford Elementary was relocated to 1222 University Ave. in 2021, and has been \u201cin its new home\u201d since, according to BUSD Spokesperson Trish McDermott.<\/p>\n

Oxford Elementary School closed after a 2019 land survey confirmed the site\u2019s position within the Keith Avenue landslide complex in the Berkeley Hills, bringing with it landslide risk for students in the event of a major earthquake.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy gut (feeling) is that lots of people that looked at (the property) just decided that the $3 million price tag was just too much for what they wanted to do, given the slide, and what they would have to try and figure out on how to deal with the slide,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

The sale was then opened up to public bidding, pursuant to education codes for the sale of \u201csurplus\u201d property. Interested parties were able to submit \u201csealed\u201d bids to be opened at the Oct. 15 meeting, or make an oral bid at that meeting. No sealed bids for the property were submitted.<\/p>\n

Smith received two pre-bid questionnaires from interested parties Oct. 10, though only Kennedy made an in-person oral bid. This was \u201csort of a surprise\u201d to Smith, having been informed Wednesday that the other bidder would be sending a proxy to the meeting.<\/p>\n

The board voted to accept Kennedy\u2019s bid, giving him 10 days to make a deposit of 10% of the property\u2019s purchase price.<\/p>\n

Residents of Oxford Street have continuously expressed concern about the sale and future of the former Oxford Elementary School site. Oxford Street resident Gail Stempler has cited health concerns about the demolition of the old school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would certainly want whoever bought it to keep us posted as to what they were doing,\u201d Stempler said. \u201cI would like to know that they were going to follow ecological (laws) to protect us, that the property would be totally encased when they\u2019re going to be taking it down. We\u2019d like to know how long it\u2019s anticipated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stempler, alongside other community members, previously hoped the property would be replaced by another school or a community park.<\/p>\n

When she realized the property was up for sale, Stempler said she felt that she and the neighborhood were not given \u201cvery much notice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was happy personally, to know that the property, given that it was basically publicly owned by a public entity, was offered to other public entities first,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt\u2019s too bad a school, or some public facing entity couldn\u2019t exist there, but it does make sense to not have several hundred kids in a location that could suffer or be compromised due to an earthquake and a subsequent fire.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Berkeley Unified School District, or BUSD, approved a $3 million bid for the purchase of the district\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[9307,9314,6765,9306,9313,9317,9316,9312,143,145,144,9308,9310,9309,9311,9315],"class_list":["post-9626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-1130-oxford-street","tag-1222-university-ave","tag-berkeley-unified-school-district","tag-busd","tag-enikia-ford-morthel","tag-gail-stempler","tag-keith-avenue-landslide-complex","tag-norheim-yost-commercial-real-estate","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oxford-elementary-school","tag-panoramic-interests","tag-patrick-kennedy","tag-steve-smith","tag-trish-mcdermott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}