Schools for sale: What happens after the last bell rings?

We plotted school openings and closures from 1998 to 2017 in both Ottawa'sEnglish public and Catholic boards, and the French public board. (TheFrench Catholic boarddidnot make its information available.) Click on the box on the top left corner of the map for more information.Click here to view the map in a separate window.

Thousandsof students in Ottawa are saying goodbye to their schools for the last time after a recent spate of closures within the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.

• Rideau High School toclose

Six Ottawaschools will shut their doors for good at the end ofJune, and theboard will soonstart the process of deciding what to do with the vacant buildingsand the property they occupy.

Mike Carson, chief financial officer for theOCDSB, saidthe board maydecide to keep some of the empty schoolsin case they're needed in the future. The remaining buildingswill be declared surplusand put up for sale.

Nobody wants those buildings sitting dark and unused.-Mike Carson,OCDSB

The schools closing in 2017 are:

• RideauHigh School.
• D. AubreyMoodieIntermediate School.
• GreenbankMiddle School.
• Leslie Park Public School.
• Grant Alternative School.
• Century Public School.

Who can buy a vacant school?

New provincial regulations introduced in 2016 mean a wider variety of agenciescan now bid on vacant schools.

Here's how it works:

1. A vacant school is declared surplus by the school board.
2. More than 80 public agenciesincluding other school boards, universities, colleges, the province,the municipality, children's mental health agencies,public health boards, First Nations and Mtis organizations, muncipalities, the provinceand the federal government can make a bid for the property.
3. Interested parties have 90 days to express interest in the property, and another 90 days to submit an offer. (Under the old rules, a purchaseoffer had to be made within the first 90 days.)
4. The board negotiates the sale of the school, at fair market value,to one of those agencies.

If there are no takers among those public agencies, Carson said it will take a minimum of sixmonths before the board can even begin offering aschoolfor private sale.

That could also mean added costs for the board, since it needs tokeep surplus properties in good condition. The annual upkeep for a small, vacant elementary school,for example, could cost the board between $20,000 and$25,000, Carson said.

"Nobody wants those buildings sitting dark and unused," he said.

The last Ottawa school to be sold to a private developer was LaurentianHigh Schoolon Baseline Road. It was purchased bySmart Centres, whichdemolished thebuilding to buildashopping plaza.