Jay Goldman, a Charleston real estate agent, prepares to auction off J.E. Robins in the former school’s auditorium.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The market for shuttered, vandalized, 1920s-era elementary schools on Charleston’s West Side is not so hot.
Two such schools were tentatively sold at auction Wednesday morning, but for prices far below the listed minimum bids, meaning the Kanawha County Board of Education will have to approve the sales before they are final.
“What you see is what you get,” auctioneer and Charleston real estate agent Jay Goldman said outside Watts Elementary School. “Don’t expect the Board of Education to clean it up for you.”
Inside Watts, about an inch of water stood in a couple places on the first floor. First-floor windows were boarded over, to prevent further vandalism.
Watts, on Costello Street on the West Side hill, sold for $20,000. The minimum bid was $53,000, and the school’s appraised value is $628,000…