Potential Carson City School District purchase on Snyder appraised at $4.1 million

The Carson City School District has received its appraisal for 1600 Snyder Ave., Superintendent Richard Stokes reported to the Board of Trustees on Tuesday.

While the district moves forward in pursuing the purchase of the five-building Capital Christian lot for $5.67 million, the appraisal sets it at $4.1 million, according to local appraiser Daniel Leck.

Stokes said not to be considered in the report was the inclusion of personal property inside the worship center that had been left by Capital Christian Church, such as office furniture or audiovisual equipment when they vacated the premises.

The district has been waiting on the appraisal and results from the phase two environmental inspection during its feasibility study. It received its appraisal last week from local appraiser Daniel Leck, who attended Tuesday’s board meeting and provided clarification on liabilities and opportunities with items left behind by the seller.

Leck provided remarks on his appraisal to the board, saying the imminent growth of the school district, as Stokes and other officials have discussed in recent months, impacts the property’s value.

“I haven’t seen these numbers in about 15 to 20 years, and if they fill even about 70 to 80 percent of the schools, there’s going to be obstacles on the schools,” Leck told the trustees. “And based on my research on the schools, I would have come up with higher numbers, but the deficiency of the property is it consists of five different properties.”

Most Carson City schools are self-contained properties now and retrofitting a campus created as a church will be difficult, Leck said. Carson High School, as an example, was built as two separate campuses back in the late 1960s or early 1970s, according to the district’s chief fiscal officer Andrew Feuling, The high school’s own Senator Square is so wide because it had a street dividing the two buildings.

Trustees generally agreed with Leck’s report and thanked him for his honest assessment where the Snyder property falls short in some of its features or would need attention, such as carpet replacement, painting, water stains in the ceilings, easements, water runoff and other needs.

Trustee Joe Cacioppo said he still believes “the site has potential.”

“I want to make sure we understand what we’re getting,” he said. “That’s fair to us and the current owner.”