Redevelopment Authority & School District Plan Partnership To Find Uses For Closing Schools

The Bristol Township School District and the Bucks County Redevelopment Authority (RDA) will work together again to find uses for the six elementary schools that will close for good this summer.

Superintendent Dr. Melanie Gehrens and Business Manager John Steffy said the exact terms of the deal have to be worked out but it will be fee-based.

At a meeting Wednesday evening, several members of the public and district officials spoke about potential uses for when Clara Barton, John Fitch, Abraham Lincoln, Maple Shade, George Washington and Lafayette close in June. The future use of Franklin D. Roosevelt Middle School, which will likely close in the coming years, is also being examined by the district.

The results of a community use survey from last month were revealed at the meeting. The majority of the respondents suggested over 55 communities, open space, recreation centers or government buildings for the sites of the closed schools. Most commercial uses, like shopping centers and hotels, received votes for the Roosevelt site near I-95 and Route 13 on Veterans Highway (Route 413.)

District officials stated at the meeting that the Barton site next to Harry S. Truman High School on Green Lane would likely be the best spot for a centralized operations, transportation and administration building. An access road would likely have to be built through the existing fields to access Green Lane, Steffy said.

“The less buildings you have, the less cost,” Steffy said of the plan that would consolidate operations, transportation and administration from three facilities into one.

It was revealed that the district had previously spoken with Bucks County officials to try to trade the Fitch property for a portion Black Ditch Park across from Truman. Steffy said the idea was the district could be a transportation building at the lot.

Last month, it was suggested that Lafayette would make a good transportation center or possibly business location if it had a road linking it directly to Veterans Highway.  Two major challenges would be getting authority to link the site to Veterans Highway through county park land and the cost of building the connector road that would bypass the neighborhoods.

Several residents once again mentioned the idea of an athletic facility and talked of keeping existing fields open.

“It’s going to take a joint effort of the county, school district and township” to make athletic facilities work at any of the school sites, board member Jim Baker said.

Baker has made the case in the past that school districts are not in the business of operating parks and athletic facilities. He said those facilities should be run by the township or county.

In 2015, the district and the RDA began working together to find uses for the soon-to-close buildings but the partnership fell apart after concerns about various legal issues.

The next meeting on the future of the schools has not yet been set.