Frisco ISD officials are recommending the demolition of Staley Middle School, which is scheduled to close at the end of the 2025-26 school year but still costs the district roughly $300,000 a year just to keep running. The recommendation came out of a board sustainability workshop on Monday, where staff laid out three options for the school’s future: renovating and repurposing it, selling it, or tearing it down.
According to Community Impact, district officials have not identified a need to reuse or repurpose the campus. Kim Smith, Frisco ISD’s deputy superintendent of business and operations, told the board that demolition would probably be the best long-term option for the district. The board took no action on the recommendation at the workshop.
Smith said renovation expenses would only add to costs the district already faces from replacing Staley’s aging underground plumbing system, work that was previously estimated at $7 million to $10 million and 18 to 30 months to complete. She also said the campus’s proximity to other district facilities made selling it less attractive, since doing so would mean losing control over property surrounded by other Frisco ISD sites.
Why an Empty Building Still Costs So Much
Maintaining Staley isn’t free. The district spends roughly $300,000 annually on utilities for the campus, and Smith noted that figure doesn’t include the cost of repairing unexpected failures, like a burst pipe. Part of that expense comes down to basic building science: the air conditioning has to stay on around the clock…