Old GRPS schools sold to charter school

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A deal to sell four former Grand Rapids Public Schools properties has Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell saying taxpayers were deceived.

The mayor said an 11th-hour change in the plans for one of the properties should not sit well with taxpayers or the school district. He said it certainly does not sit well with him.

Faced with years of declining enrollment, the school board decided in 2011 to sell four schools to a Detroit-area developer for over $2 million. Those schools -- Oakdale, Eastern, Lexington and eventually Stocking in early February -- were sold to Ojibway Development.

The plan was that all of the buildings would become apartments.

"So for months, this has been before the staff and the citizen volunteers of the planning commission being developed as a residential project," Heartwell said.

The deal "should have been a win-win-win," Heartwell said.

The district won because it got rid of antiquated buildings. The city won because it would collect taxes from the property, and because the developer agreed that any land not used would be donated back to the city for use as park land and green space.

But on the day the papers were signed transferring possession of the properties to the new owner, the developer came back to city hall. This time, he said the plans for Oakdale School had changed.  

Ojibway announced that it had sold the Oakdale property to National Heritage Academies for use as a charter school, in essence creating competition for GRPS.

Heartwell told 24 Hour News 8 that he thinks the developer had planned to make the switch from the beginning of the sales process.

"Of course, I think that's a very very safe assumption to make," said Heartwell.

"The way that it was sold to the district and all of the documentation, it was clear that he had an ulterior motive that he did not share with the district," said GRPS spokesman John Helmholdt.

"I don't trust this developer. He has acted in what I consider to be a deceitful fashion," said Heartwell. "I am not going to do another deal with someone who lies to me."