Topeka ? The city is starting over in trying to find someone to redevelop a former school linked to the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The former Sumner Elementary School closed in 1996, and the city eventually bought the building.

A local nonprofit, Community First, proposed converting Sumner into a charter school and community hub. But the group estimated that it needed $3.6 million for the project and missed two deadlines set by the city for lining up the funding.

City Council members told staff Tuesday to draft a plan for disposing of the property, anticipating that the city could take bids and require the buyer to develop the site relatively quickly.

But Sandra Lassiter, Community First’s secretary, said the group still will try to acquire the property, regardless of how the city tries to dispose of it.

Built in 1935, Sumner was an all-white school. In 1950, local members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People decided to challenge the city’s segregated school system in federal court, and a group of black parents attempted to enroll their children in white schools.

The Rev. Oliver Brown tried to enroll his daughter, Linda, at Sumner and became a plaintiff in the parents’ lawsuit. That case, consolidated with lawsuits from three other states, led to the 1954 decision in which the Supreme Court said segregated schools were unconstitutional.

Parents reopened the Brown case in 1979, and it eventually led to a court-ordered desegregation plan. Sumner closed as part of that plan.

Last year, the city hoped another group, Pioneer Group Inc., would convert the former school into housing for senior citizens, but Pioneer backed away when it couldn’t obtain state tax credits.