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With four Salt Lake City elementary schools set to permanently shut down, there is one question school district leaders are not ready to answer: What happens to the buildings?
“The buildings can wait,” Salt Lake City School District spokesperson Yándary Chatwin said. On the list of next steps, the properties are not an immediate priority.
But that doesn’t mean residents are not concerned. The possibility of the once-bustling buildings sitting vacant worries parents and other nearby property owners alike.
What could happen? Here is what we know so far.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake City School District board members in January voted to permanently shut down four local elementary schools: Bennion and Hawthorne on the east side, and Mary W. Jackson and Riley on the west.
What the district is saying
The four campuses that will close by the start of the next school year are Bennion and Hawthorne on the east side, and Mary W. Jackson and Riley on the west.
The district’s school board members could choose to keep the buildings, and lease them out — a possible source of revenue, but also cost, as the district would be on the hook for continued maintenance.
If board members want to sell, state law mandates that they must first offer the properties to Salt Lake City, meaning the buildings’ futures would be in the city’s hands.
At a December school board meeting, district superintendent Elizabeth Grant offered a bit of insight.
“Our intention is not to hand these properties over for immediate property development,” Grant said at the time, adding that it’s “not the goal or the interests of the school district.”
Right now, though, the district is focusing on transitioning students and staff at the four campuses to their new school communities, Chatwin said. That involves doling out staff reassignments, as well as hosting open houses, where families can check out the schools their students may attend next year.
Any plans for the soon-emptied buildings will only come after an evaluation of each property, based on district or student needs, Chatwin said, citing district policy. District officials would then present formal recommendations to the board.
In the meantime, Chatwin said the district is committed to assigning a custodian to check in on the buildings to “make sure things are okay, that we’re not attracting activity we don’t want.”
What community leaders would like to see
(Michael Lee | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake City Council member Victoria Petro urges Salt Lake City School District board members to vote down a recommendation to close four schools at a school board meeting in West High School on Dec. 5, 2023.
Salt Lake City Council member Victoria Petro, who has two children enrolled at Mary W. Jackson, is “greatly concerned” that by the time input is gathered on the buildings’ futures, “the worst effects of additional abandoned buildings will wreak havoc on those neighborhoods that cannot afford that extra chaos.”
Long before the Jan. 9 closure vote, Petro — along with fellow City Council member Alejandro Puy — pushed for the district to rent out any affected buildings to nonprofits that can help community needs. Both Petro and Puy represent neighborhoods on the west side.
That could mean food-distribution services at Riley, or community and mental health services at Mary W. Jackson, Petro said. Many students at Mary W. Jackson rely on the nearby Boys and Girls Club location — a little over a block away from the campus, she said.
“Schools on the west side don’t function as simply education centers,” she said. “They are cultural centers of community building and coalescence, and there are so many holes now by taking this away.”
Board members could also sell or lease the spaces to charter schools to continue giving neighborhood residents a walkable school, she said.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Parents and students walk to class on the first day of school at Mary W. Jackson Elementary, August 22, 2023.
Former Riley parent Kalo Hokafonu, a Poplar Grove resident, told The Salt Lake Tribune in August that she would like to see the school’s site become a community space, or even restaurants that reflect the west side’s rich cultural diversity.
Riley could also be a good spot for the district to place a potential west side high school, Glendale Neighborhood Council chair Turner Bitton has said — something west-side residents have been calling for since at least 2022. Bitton also suggested using the property for a grocery store, or even affordable housing.
“I can see the potential for a partnership that could result in solving some of the underlying issues that have resulted in schools having to be closed in the first place,” he said in August.
What Salt Lake City neighborhoods are losing schools?
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Hawthorne Elementary School in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 25, 2023.
Hawthorne, built in 1986, sits on busy 700 East at 1700 South, with spacious Liberty Park an easy walk to the north. The 5.55-acre property is surrounded by homes and apartment buildings, with some small businesses in the area and a neighborhood garden across the street from its playing field.
Around 12 blocks north sits Bennion, built just six years before Hawthorne in 1986. The campus, sitting at 4.28 acres, is situated around the corner of 400 South in a Central City neighborhood that mixes both houses and apartment complexes, along with small and more well-known franchise businesses.
On the city’s west side, Riley lies at the easternmost end of the Glendale community. The 8.82-acre campus borders not only the neighborhood packed with homes, but also industrial buildings like transport and storage businesses. Neighboring north of the 24-year-old school is the Sorenson Multi-Cultural Center, a resource Riley families have noted students stand to lose easy access to as the school is set to shutter.
The fourth campus, at the edge of the Fairpark neighborhood, is Mary W. Jackson, built in 1981 on 5.8 acres. The school is not only surrounded by two churches — the Free Church of Tonga and Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, but also borders 700 West and Interstate 15. The neighborhood also is densely packed with homes, smaller businesses and restaurants sprinkled within.
What happened the last time Salt Lake City schools closed?
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) The former Rosslyn Heights Elementary, in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 25, 2023.
Before the closure vote this month, the last time the district closed brick-and-mortar schools was in 2002, when it shuttered Lowell and Rosslyn Heights elementaries.
The two buildings soon became homes to two district-sponsored charter schools, Open Classroom at Lowell and Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts, or SPA, at Rosslyn Heights.
Last summer, the district decided against renewing SPA’s lease at Rosslyn Heights as the building had “reached the end of its life,” Chatwin told The Tribune.
In November, board members voted to approve a plan to turn the Rosslyn Heights property into athletics spaces for Highland High School students, planning for six tennis courts, a combined, artificial soccer and lacrosse field and a sports field building.
Open Classroom still occupies the former Lowell building, while the Rosslyn Heights property has since been demolished to construct the new athletics area.
Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.
Correction • Jan. 23, 11 a.m.: The story has been updated to correctly explain the needs the district will reference as school buildings are evaluated.
