With little notice, Concord Ed Board buys abutting home for temporary use during middle school construction

The Concord Board of Education voted to buy a two-bedroom home on Conant Street that will serve to replace some trailers during construction of the new middle school.

The $373,000 buy will draw on the already approved budget for the project, district officials said, replacing costs for three trailers that would have served as an on-site home base for the construction management company and the district’s project manager. The buy materialized quickly and wasn’t clearly communicated to the public before the board’s vote, which the district attributed to the timeline of the seller and a desire to protect the district as a buyer.

The district sought out the purchase this spring, said Business Administrator Jack Dunn, as a way to save money in the long run on the project.

“You get absolutely no return on those trailers when you’re all done, because you basically lease them and then you turn them back in,” Dunn said. “We were trying to figure out: Would there be a way to be able to purchase a property, use it temporarily, and then be able to either return it to the tax rolls or incorporate it into the project?”

A realtor found that 20 Conant Drive was about to go on the market, Dunn said, and the district secured an agreement before the home was listed.

While the purchase price for the home is higher than what the trailers would have cost to rent – between $200,000 and $250,000 not counting electricity, according to Dunn – the district sees the move as a more productive investment of its construction funds.

“It’s something that retains value as opposed to losing it,” Board President Pamela Walsh said ahead of the board’s vote Monday.

“I can hear people shouting at their televisions as they watch this,” said board member Brenda Hastings. “I want it to be really clear that if we go ahead with this, it’s because we feel it’s a money-saving, short-term solution to our trailer problems.”

Once the project is complete, the district could either sell the property off as a home or fold it into the educational campus, potentially as added parking or another use. That hasn’t been determined yet, but Dunn argued that, either way, the district gains an asset.

Paying the $372,500 and getting something in the end is better than paying $250,000 and getting nothing in the end, he said. The difference in upfront costs will be absorbed by the contingency line in the $155 million construction budget.

The home at 20 Conant Drive is surrounded by existing district property, located at the exit of the current Rundlett driveway and bordered to the south by a roughly 30-foot-wide pathway to Abbot-Downing.

The 1950 home was last sold in 2024 for $275,000. The real estate site Zillow estimates that, today, the home would sell for $353,000.

The idea of such a purchase, let alone the purchase of this property itself, had never previously been discussed in public by the board or any of its committees. A “property acquisition” item appeared on the agenda, but there were no details or attachments indicating where the potential purchase would be, how much it would cost or what it was for. The board held a non-public session Monday ahead of its discussion of the buy, which occurred at a meeting open to the public.

Dunn said the sale came about quickly. The homeowner was eager to list the property, and the board wanted to vet the deed and other details before advertising that it would pursue a sale. The purchase and sale agreement expired the day after the board meeting, leaving the board no room to push off a vote.

The property contains a deed restriction stating that it must remain residential. Under the advice of legal counsel, the district has determined it would be exempt from that requirement under the state law immunizing governmental properties from certain land use regulations.

The district has not announced a formal groundbreaking date, though some sitework is already underway.

At the tail-end of the winter, the district solicited suggestions from the community about what to name the new middle school, and it hopes to have a selection in place before breaking ground.

There is no update on the naming process or groundbreaking date, according to Public Information Officer Terry Wolf. The board’s building committee will meet Thursday.