“I know the people of New Carlisle will be very happy about this,” Clark County Commissioner Lowell McGlothin said.
Madison Elementary, located at 600 W. Madison St. in New Carlisle, was purchased in 1998 after voters approved two issues allowing the City of New Carlisle to purchase the school for $110,000 and increasing the city’s income tax by a half percent, in part to pay for the project.
The city planned to use the building for government offices and a community center, but former city officials learned later that renovations would cost between $3.2 million and $5 million. The building has since sat vacant. According to the Clark County Auditor’s website, the property was appraised at around $724,000 in 2018.
The New Carlisle City Council lowered the price of the property to $50,000 in 2014. City officials hoped the deal would attract new developers who previously weren’t interested in the property, however, the city did not have any takers.
The building has also been a target of vandalism in the past. In 2014, an arsonist spray-painted a circle and wrote ‘boom’, on the roof of the building before setting a fire that burned through the concrete sub-roof of the school.
New Carlisle City Manager Randy Bridge said previously there are no immediate plans for the 0.6 acres of land the school sits on.
A demolition date for the property has not yet been scheduled, however, the project’s funding expires on Oct. 31, 2022.
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