Churches, private schools and office-oriented businesses are the leading candidates to buy a pair of school buildings that were closed last month.

Rick Gammill, director of transportation, safety and facilities planning for Lawrence public schools, predicted the district might find a buyer for the former Riverside School building, 601 N. Iowa, within three months.

And Rob Hulse, a real estate agent with Stephens Real Estate, said he expected to find a buyer for the former Bishop Seabury Academy building, 1411 E. 1850 Road, by the end of the summer, or the building will be converted into office and research space by the building’s existing owners, Mike and Connie Cook, of Lawrence-based Environmental Management Resources Inc.

Both school buildings soon will be vacant. Lawrence public school officials decided to close Riverside and send the students to Pinckney and Deerfield schools beginning next school year. Officials with the private Bishop Seabury Academy bought the former Alvamar Racquet and Tennis Club and will begin conducting classes there next school year.

Riverside prospects

Gammill said the school district was in discussions with three groups interested in purchasing the 12,956-square-foot Riverside building on three acres. One group is a private school, one is a church and the third is a business. He declined to identify the potential buyers.

“We have been pleased with the interest,” Gammill said. “We think we have an excellent location. It is in an industrial area, which we don’t think is good for a school, but we do think it may be a good location for a business.”

The property is zoned for single-family residential use. That means the property would have to be rezoned before a business could locate there.

Gammill said the district was asking $1.2 million for the property, but was willing to accept bids from interested buyers.

“We really want to sell it because we really need the money,” Gammill said.

Seabury seekers

The former building of Bishop Seabury Academy is up for sale. Stephens Real Estate agent Rob Hulse checks Monday on a sign in front of the building at 1411 E. 1850 Road.

Hulse said interest in the Bishop Seabury property had been light since the property went on the market in mid-spring. The owners were asking $500,000 but recently lowered the price to $410,000 for the five-acre property that has three buildings totaling about 14,000 square feet.

Hulse said he had marketed the property primarily for use by another school, church or child-care facility.

“I think the easiest thing to do would be to continue that type of use,” Hulse said. “It might be difficult to put a business out there, but if people think outside the box and have an open mind, there could be a lot of opportunities for that, too.”

Hulse said he had one business owner look at the property for office space primarily because he thought the gymnasium, baseball field and several acres of open space would provide a nice “lifestyle benefit” for his employees.

The property served as Bishop Seabury’s school building for the past five years. Before that, Environmental Management Resources used the building as its headquarters. It was rented to Bishop Seabury after the company moved into other space in Lawrence.

Hulse said Environmental Management Resources probably would move back into the building if a buyer couldn’t be found in the next 60 days. Environmental Management Resources has about 30 Lawrence employees and designs cleanup projects for a variety of government and industry clients.

Locating a business on the property would require approval from the Douglas County Commission. The property isn’t zoned for commercial use, but the county previously issued a conditional-use permit that allowed EMR to operate on the property in the mid-1990s.

Dave Vertacnik, who at 1403 E. 1850 Road lives just a few hundred feet away from the school, said he thought neighbors were concerned about possible uses for the school.

“What we don’t want to see it turn into is an industrial park,” Vertacnik said, noting the site is only about a mile away from the East Hills Industrial Park. “A school would be great, and office space would probably be fine, but I don’t want to see heavy industry rolling in there with lots of trucks.

“We would like to see something that would allow us to keep some sort of tranquility out here in the valley.”