Butler School District still has options to sell its four vacant elementary school buildings.

The district last week finished a closed bid process. Then Monday night school board members rejected the two bids they received.

“They could actually do another round of sealed bids if they want to,” said Dale Lumley, superintendent.

Other options include a private sale, either by representing themselves or hiring a real estate agent. A public auction is also an option, but Lumley thought that route was unlikely.

The Center for Community Resources had bid $150,000 for Broad Street Elementary, and Robert Oesterling had bid $100,000 for either Clearfield or Oakland elementary schools during the closed bid process.

Neither bid met appraised values of the buildings, which were released Monday night.

The district hired David King and Kyle McCown to appraise the buildings over the summer. The averages of both appraisers are $456,500 for Broad Street, $236,000 for Clearfield, $362,500 for Oakland and $530,000 for Meridian.

District solicitor Tom King said right now the county court would want to see the buildings sold for at least the lowest appraised value.

“I think if the thing went on and on and on ... certainly at this point it has not been long enough,” King said.

An exception of that rule would be if a nonprofit wanted to buy a school for community purposes. For instance, a group of Clearfield Township residents have formed an organization called Clearfield Community Center.

“If they are a legit 501(c)(3) (nonprofit organization), then the district could make a deal with less than fair market value,” King said, “because it would be a benefit to the community.”

Mike Robb, executive director of The Center for Community Resources, said he hoped to convert Broad Street into a community center. He still wants to consider it as a possibility. The lowest assessed value at Broad Street was $335,000.

“We think it’s a good building for the community, and we have some good community use for it. We anticipated our bid wouldn’t be accepted, but we didn’t have all of the information that’s now released,” Robb said. “Now we can maybe make some different evaluations from a price standpoint.”

Oesterling had plans to expand his wholesale electronic cigarette business, now based in Clarion, to the Butler area with the intention of making one of the closed schools a warehouse.

However, with the appraisal amounts at $225,000 for Clearfield and $300,000 for Oakland, he’s not sure if he’d be willing to pay that much for an older school building.

“The thing about buying a school like that, there’s got to be a lot of renovations that have to happen before you can use the building,” Oesterling said. “To buy a building at the appraised value, you can almost build your own specifically to fit. I’m probably not going to go for the full appraised value.”

The school district closed Broad Street, Center Avenue, Clearfield, Meridian and Oakland elementary schools in June as part of a districtwide consolidation plan.

Center Avenue was repurposed into a special needs and alternative school.