Lindenhurst School District to give info on sale of school

The Lindenhurst school district on Wednesday is holding an informational meeting on the sale of the Edward W. Bower elementary school.

The meeting will serve to inform and update residents on the status of the sale of the Montauk Highway school to Engel Burman Group of Garden City. The sale was approved by the board of education 7-2 in December.

Bower was closed in 2011 due to the building’s age and declining enrollment. The board voted to sell the school, parts of which are leased to several groups but which still costs the district more than $150,000 a year to maintain.

Engel Burman offered $5.5 million to the district to develop the property for 100 senior condo units, plus a clubhouse and pool. The condos would be 1,000-square-foot, one-bedroom units marketed for around $400,000 each.

The board unanimously rejected development offers by Mill Creek Residential of Dallas for 150 multifamily rental units for $6 million and by Simply Self Storage of Orlando, Florida, which offered $5 million to build a 150,000-square-foot building with 1,000 storage units. As part of that deal the self-storage company also promised to give back to the district a soccer field and to build 50 parking spaces for the field.

The district is in contract with Engel Burman but the sale is contingent upon public approval in a separate public referendum, which officials said would likely be held later this year.

The informational meeting will be held at 8 p.m. at the McKenna Administration Building, 350 Daniel St.