Friendship Missionary Baptist Church has withdrawn its offer for Brownsville Middle School after Superintendent of Schools Malcolm Thomas refused to extend the due diligence period beyond 30 days or to consider a lower purchase price after the church discovered that cost of the environmental remediation and basic repairs to get the buildings up to code could be as much as $500,000.
Attorney John Monroe, who is representing the church, met with Thomas, Thomas’ attorney, Thomas’ realtor and several staff members on Monday. Monroe believes that the normal due diligence period for an older facility like this –that has suffered fire damage, a broken water line and has been closed for nearly four years– should be 90 to 180 days.
Engineers at Gulf Coast Architectural Group have told the church leaders that the basic assessments needed for environmental and structural analysis could cost up $70,000. The church already has spent $30,000.
Rev. Lutimothy May, pastor of Friendship Missionary Baptist, became concerned about structural issues at the Brownsville Middle School after he learned earlier this month that the facility had broken water line that ran up the closed facility’s water bill from $500/mo. to over $10,000 in December.
May has been advised by his attorney, the engineers and others that more time is needed to fully understand the problems at the old school and to get a more complete estimate of the cost to make the facility viable as a community center.
Since November, the School District has been pressuring the church to close on this property. On Dec. 16, Thomas agreed to sell the school to the church for $1.02 million and had closing documents delivered to the church within hours….before the Church even knew that Thomas had agreed to the price. There was considerable pressure on the church to close the deal by Dec. 31.
Fortunately, the church didn’t succumb and community leaders stepped forward to help it better examine this purchase. Imagine how disastrous it would have been for the church to sign the purchase agreement and find that the facility wasn’t as sound or safe as it had been presented.