After Oconee County moved its nonjudicial offices to the new Administrative Building at 7635 Macon Highway north of Watksinville in the summer of 2023, it designated as excess property two buildings it had been using near the Courthouse and another on SR 15 on the south of the city.
When the Oconee County Library moved to Wire Park earlier this year, the county also designated that property an excess. It put all four properties up for sale.
The county has earned just less than $4.2 million from the sale of these four properties and assigned most of that money for development of the planned Dawson Park on Rocky Branch Road.
When Oconee County Schools moved its administrative offices to the new Instructional Support Center on North Main Street, in contrast, it retained its historic School Street campus, which it has owned since 1898.
A person named R.M. Jackson donated that property to the Oconee County Board of Education on March 16 of that year on the condition it “build or cause to be built a good and substantial School-House” on the land.
The Board of Education, on Feb. 12 of 2001, sold 0.354 acres of that land, including the school it had built in 1902, to Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation Inc. (OCAF), but it retained the remaining acreage containing three buildings and a trailer and used them as the system’s administrative offices until this year.
The School Board never considered selling the remaining acreage on School Street with those buildings when it designed and built the new Instructional Support Center, according to School Board Chair Kim Argo, even though the Instructional Support Center contains unused space.
Instead, the three buildings have been assigned to the Oconee County Schools Technology Department.
September Report
Tony McCullers, Chief Technology Officer for Oconee County Schools, told the Board at its Sept. 9, 2024, meeting that the building that that formerly was used by Business Services “is now the network operations building.”
McCullers said this building “houses our main network infrastructure for the district.”
The building that formerly housed the Teaching and Learning Department “is now the Instructional Technology Building,” McCullers said.
McCullers said this “facility houses office space for each of our instructional technology specialists” and “features collaborative spaces designed to facilitate communication and coordination among our IT staff and educators.”
The building that included the Superintendent’s Office and the Board meeting room “is now the Technology Administrative Building,” he said.
“Here you will find the Technology secretary, database administrators, and technology specialists,” he said. “This facility handles financial matters, ordering, receiving, and management of our student information system.”
“Additionally, it includes a large conference room that is utilized for various training and meetings, further supporting our technology initiatives,” he said. “As you can see, each building plays a crucial role ensuring that our technology infrastructure is robust, our schools are well supported, and our administrative processes are efficient.”
“I would like to thank the Board for the support and resources provided, which have made these facilities and their functions possible,” McCullers said in concluding. “As you can see by the face in these pictures (shown on the screen), we are very happy with our new setup.”
Tax Records
According to Oconee County Property Records, the acreage that the Board owns on School Street consists of 1.38 acres and has an assessed value of $520,045.
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| Former Teaching And Learning Office 11/16/2025 |
Though the aerial view shows three buildings, only the building that formerly served as the superintendent office and included the Board Room is assessed.
The 3,975-square-foot building was constructed in 1970, according to those records.
The tax record does list a mobile home built in 2002.
McCullers told School Board Member Tim Burgess when he gave his report to the Board in September that the trailer had been removed
Missing from the tax record is the building between the school building, sold to OCAF in 2001, and a second building, with a sign for Kindergarten over the door, also sold to OCAF by the Board of Education that year.
That building between the two OCAF buildings housed Business Services prior to the move to the new Instructional Support Center.
Also missing is a building that backs up to a third OCAF Building, also purchased from the Board of Education in 2001, that was a gymnasium.
This third building was the one that formerly housed the Teaching and Learning Department.
The assessed value of the three properties the Board sold to OCAF in 2001 is $1,643,777.
Argo On School Street Property
On the evening of Dec. 2, I sent Board Chair Argo an email asking her: “Can you tell me why the Board has not moved the Technology Office to the Instructional Support Center and sold the School Street Campus?” (Argo is stepping down as chair on Tuesday.)
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| Former Business Services Office 11/16/2024 |
She responded the following day, saying: “Throughout the planning stages for the Instructional Support Center, the Technology Division was designated to move to the historic School Street Campus from the barn at Oconee Middle.”
“Having the staff at School Street, which houses the critical infrastructure that supports the district, helps streamline daily operations,” she continued. “There are no plans to sell the School Street Campus.”
I asked Communications Director Steven Colquitt to elaborate on “critical infrastructure.” He said “The School Street campus houses the network servers, the phone system, and the Internet connection for the district. Technology specialists, database administrators, and support staff are onsite as well."
Argo wrote on Dec. 6 that “The third floor of the Instructional Support Center is finished attic space intended to provide additional meeting areas.”
“As I stated previously, the Technology Division was designated for the School Street location from the outset of ISC planning. There are no plans to sell the historic School Street campus.”
Colquitt also wrote on Dec. 6 that “The specialists, technicians, and administrative staffers previously housed in the technology barn moved to School Street. The barn is currently being used for district storage.”
During public discussion of plans for the Instructional Support Center in 2020, no mention was made of future use of the School Street property. Then Communication Director Anisa Sullivan Jimenez mentioned in an overview of the history of the school street property in September of 2022 that the Technology Department would use the three buildings on the property once the Instructional Support Center was completed, but there was no discussion of that decision. (This paragraph has been updated since it was originally posted.)
Deed For School Properties
On Sept. 16, after McCullers gave his report on use of the School Street campus, I filed an open records request with Colquitt, who is open records officer for Oconee County Schools.
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| Former Superintendent Office 11/16/2024 |
I asked for a copy of the deeds for the School Street property, for the property on which the Instructional Support Center sits, and for the property on which Oconee County Elementary School sits.
On Sept. 19, Colquitt sent me the deed for the property at 71 North Main Street on which the Instructional Support Center sits, but he said “With respect to your request for the other two parcels, there are no responsive documents.”
The deed for the 71 North Main Street property shows that Oconee County Schools purchased the site of the Instructional Support Center, a 6.67-acre parcel, on Dec. 29, 2009, from Will-O-War LLC.
The purchase of the current site of the Instructional Support Center from Will-O-War LLC was more than a year before the School Board sold the three properties to OCAF.
According to the deed, Will-O-War LLC acquired the property from David Williams and Charles Williams.
David Williams, prior to the sale, had been a member of the Oconee County Board of Education.
According to the Secretary of State corporate database, Will-O-War LLC was organized on July 9, 2002, with former state Representative Charles Williams as the registered agent.
According to county tax records, the purchase price was $900,000.
The tax records also indicate that the Instructional Support Center is 27,200 square feet in size, with “7800 Sq Ft of Finished Office on 3rd fl.”
Help From Court Clerk
After Colquitt told me Oconee County Schools did not have a deed for its School Street property, I contacted Angela Elder-Johnson, Superior Court Clerk for Oconee County, who has responsibility for property deeds in the county, and asked if she could help me locate the deed for the school street property.
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| Former High School Building With Rendition 11/16/2024 |
A few days later she sent me a photo copy of the deed for the property dated March 16, 1898.
The hand-written deed states that R.M. Jackson was donating “an acre of land” to the Board of Education of Oconee County to build a “school house..to be used for the school purposes in a common every day school for white children.”
The dead further states that “whenever the said lands and the school house so to be built shall cease to be used as a common school for white children...this deed shall then be null and void.”
In 1900, two years before the school house was built on the property donated to the Oconee County Board of Education, 51.3 percent of the population in the county was Black, according to Census data.
The county’s schools were not integrated until the 1960s.
Larger Campus
It is difficult to determine the boundaries of the property described in the 1898 deed, but the book containing the deed also contains a survey for Oconee County Schools dated Dec. 11, 1998, or before the Board of Education purchased the property on which the Instructional Support Center now stands.
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| Original School Street Campus From Deed Book (Click To Enlarge) |
Elder-Johnson gave me a copy of that survey as well.
That survey lists six tracts. The first is 2.4 acres that make up Rocket Field. The second is the parking lot on the east side of Rocket Field.
Oconee County Schools transferred these two properties to the city of Watkinsville on Aug. 9, 1999, at no cost.
Tracts 3, 5, and 6 were sold to OCAF on Feb. 12, 2001, for the total of $1,200 for the three properties. These are the school building east of the parking lot and Rocket Field with the sign Kindergarten on the door, the school building (later used mostly as a high school), and the gymnasium.
Tract 4 is the remaining parcel of 1.38 acres that contains the three buildings McCullers was referring to and is still owned by the Oconee County Board of Education.
Tract 5 appears to be carved from the parcel that R.M. Jackson transferred to the Oconee County Board of Education in 1898 for “a common every-day school for white children accessible thereto.”
The deed for the sale of the three properties to OCAF, provided to me by Elder-Johnson in response to a simple email request, stipulates that all three properties were sold on the condition that OCAF not vacate or abandon the properties, become insolvent, file for bankruptcy, determine that it no longer needs the property, or does not qualify as a federal and state tax exempt organization.
It also states that if OCAF “elects to relocate its operations or activities to another site...the Grantor (Oconee County School District) shall have the first and prior right to re-acquire the property...”
The 2001 deed makes no mention of the restrictions R.M. Jackson placed on the deed in 1898.
The school house, built in 1902 and used in the later part of its life as a high school, was badly damaged by fire in 1954. It was restored partially, tax records indicate in 1990, before its sale to OCAF.
County Sale Of Excess Property
In July of last year the Board of Commissioners agreed to sell the building that formerly housed the Oconee County Library on Experiment Station Road and the Annex on SR 15 in the Watkinsville Industrial Park.
The Board voted to accept a bid from A&B Holdco LLC for $1,582,114 for the Library Building and a bid from Darron Britt of $1,857,000 for the Government Annex.
At that same meeting, the Board also approved a master plan Dawson Park on Rocky Branch Road and subsequently approved a budget revision that designated the funds from the sale of the two properties for the park.
In March of 2022, the Board accepted bids for sale of two properties next door to the Courthouse.
The Board approved a bid of $376,250 for the Elections Office Building, 10 Court Street, on the south side of the Courthouse, and a bid of $355,000 for the Ward Building, on the opposite side of the Courthouse at 3 Third Street.
Darron Britt was the higher of two bidders for the Elections Office, and VSC Properties LLLC was the highest of three bidders for the Ward Building.
1 comment:
Very interesting.
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