Money isn’t an issue for the folks who want to build housing for teachers and school district employees at the school district’s Trumbo Road headquarters. In fact, the same people own the adjacent, multimillion-dollar Steam Plant condominiums, and want to improve the surrounding neighborhood.
“We have a pile of cash that a long-legged show dog couldn’t jump over,” Walter “Wag” Woodward told members of the county school board and its housing task force at a meeting Monday morning. “I could write you a check for this whole Trumbo Road property today and build a park, but that’s not what the school board wants to do. You need housing for teachers.”
(Woodward added that his family sold its oil interests in Texas for $6.1 billion, and recently made a similar sale of natural gas investments in northern Louisiana.)
One of Woodward’s companies, SPGL LLC, last month submitted an unsolicited proposal to the school board, proposing to build about 76 apartments, a new administration building and a bunch of green space on the school district’s approximately 6-acre waterfront property.
After nearly three hours of discussion, the school board and its housing task force decided they wanted more housing units and no administration building on the Trumbo Road property.
They’ll use Woodward’s unsolicited proposal as a template to see what other developers may propose for that site, but with the stipulation that proposals should include more housing units and no administration building.
Woodward and SPGL also have the opportunity to revise and resubmit their proposal.
“I doubt there will be much other interest,” said task force member Ed Swift, who has built several affordable housing developments in Key West and Stock Island. “The folks at SPGL and the Steam Plant condominiums are your neighbors and they have piles of cash. I think they are ideal for us getting what we want for teachers. Let’s see what they can come up with to give more housing units without the admin building on this site.”
School district officials have discussed moving the administration building off of Trumbo Road for nearly 20 years.
“For the past eight years SPGL has taken note of the multiple proposals, committees, focus groups and speculation of how the district can best utilize the 5.9-acre parcel next door to address the need for affordable housing,” states SPGL’s unsolicited proposal. “Despite the enthusiasm and good intentions of past affordable housing proponents, no feasible proposal has been presented which addresses how to acquire the property, pay for construction of the housing, the relocation of the administration offices and functions, applicable zoning restrictions, (building permit) allocations, Department of Education deed restrictions, etc.”
SPGL has proposed to build 76 apartments, including 56 one-bedroom units, 10 two-bedroom units and 10 three-bedroom units to be exclusively available to district employees. “The development of these units will not rely on tax credit financing,” SPGL says, “and is therefore able to limit tenant eligibility to MCSD essential employees.”
The project would not cost the school district funding that it does not currently have, and SPGL would lease the school district’s land for 99 years for $10 per year and collect the income-restricted rents on the housing.
School board member Mindy Conn was emphatic that the administration building should be moved from Trumbo Road, and Superintendent Theresa Axford reminded the board that the city of Key West had allocated 150 building permits to the school district for the housing project, and the city expects as many housing units as possible on that site, meaning SPGL’s proposed 76 units will likely increase when the administration building is removed from the plans.
