Wichita school district’s administration building to become loft apartments in proposed sale

The Wichita school district plans to sell its administration building in downtown Wichita to developer David Burk, who plans to turn the building into loft apartments.

School board members will consider a proposal Monday to sell the building at 201 N. Water to Water Street Lofts, LLC, for $1.2 million.

After closing on the deal sometime next month, the district would lease the building from Burk’s company for $4,700 a month until it can move its offices to the current Southeast High School at Lincoln and Edgemoor.

A new Southeast High School, under construction at 127th Street East and Pawnee, is expected to open in the fall of 2016.

“It’s very positive,” Wichita superintendent John Allison said of the proposed sale Thursday.

“We told the community we would be relocating AMAC to the current Southeast when that whole discussion was going on, so we’re doing exactly what we said we’d do.”

District officials began shopping the nine-story Alvin E. Morris Administrative Center – commonly referred to by its acronym, AMAC – to potential buyers more than a year ago.

Burk said he is excited about the deal and the building’s potential. He plans to convert it to about 90 one- and two-bedroom apartments.

“It’s a high rise, and the upper floors have great views. There’s a lot of windows” and plenty of adjacent parking, he said. “So I’m excited. It’s a great building.”

“It will add to our inventory of people living downtown, which is the direction I think we need to go now, just getting more people living downtown.”

This story was originally published December 4, 2014 at 5:11 PM with the headline "Wichita school district’s administration building to become loft apartments in proposed sale."