Closed, abandoned Pittsburgh schools costing taxpayers nearly $450K to maintain

PITTSBURGH — Hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars are being used to keep closed, empty schools essentially open.

Pittsburgh is home to several of these buildings, some which haven’t been used by the district for years.

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There are four Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) buildings that were recently put on the market: Arlington Elementary School, Bon Air Elementary School, Belmar School and Mann School.

The request for proposals closed earlier this month with bids on Belmar and Mann.

Fourth River Development is contracted to sell the empty buildings, but just keeping these closed schools in good enough condition is costing taxpayers. PPS officials said the district spent more than $440,000 in maintenance costs for closed buildings in 2018 alone -- the equivalent of 10 teacher salaries, according to Indeed.com.

That is up from $336,000 the year before.

What Belmar and Mann could become will be made clear this spring when the school board votes on the proposals. Residents hope deals get done that could take some of the burden off the taxpayers and help out the district in the long run.

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