The Board of Trustees has approved the sale of the former Monsignor Uyen Catholic School located at 255 Lark Street, Chatham, for a sum of $1,610,000.
Schools board officials say this sale received approval during a Special Meeting of the Board of Trustees held on Thursday, August 10, 2023, conducted electronically via TEAMS.
The school building and its associated property were deemed surplus to the Board’s requirements back in 2019.
Following this determination, the property was offered for sale to a list of preferred public sector agents at a fair market value, in accordance with the directives outlined in Ontario Regulation 444/98.
Since there were no expressions of interest from the preferred agents, in November 2021, the Board issued a Request for Offers (RFO) to the general public.
The submission period for the RFO concluded in December 2021, resulting in the receipt of three offers.
However, at that point in time, the Board chose not to accept any of the offers.
To facilitate the sale, the Board enlisted the services of Buckingham Realty (Windsor) Ltd. to list the property.
In July 2023, the property was once again placed on the market, this time with a listed price of $750,000.
Throughout July, two open houses were held, leading up to the closing date of August 1, 2023.
During this process, six offers were received, with the highest bid coming from J. Robert Myers in Trust at a total of $1,610,000.
John Van Heck, Chair of the Board, expressed his gratitude, stating, “I want to extend my appreciation to Amy Janssens and her team for successfully managing the sale of another one of our surplus school properties. It remains crucial for the Board to continually decrease our inventory of school properties when they are no longer required to fulfill our needs.”
In September 2021, the Monsignor Uyen Catholic School community transitioned from the Lark Street property to the newly refurbished school located at 545 Baldoon Road, which is the former site of Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School.
Our Lady of Fatima had ceased operations in June 2020, with the Fatima community subsequently relocating to the new St. Angela Merici Catholic School in September 2020.
This relocation included students from the former St. Agnes and St. Vincent Catholic school communities.
