School sale in jeopardy?

For those of you in the Lowell Joint School District, we've been hearing the multimillion-dollar sale of the Grovedale Elementary School campus -- where the private Carden School is located -- may be in peril.

But Superintendent Patricia Howell says that's not the case, and the sale is still very much on.

Carden agreed to buy the school in 2006 for $8.3 million. But last year, they came up with an idea to split the property into two lots -- a big one and a small one --  so Carden would only pay $5.5 million for the bigger one while the district would keep the smaller one.

But that lot-split is what's holding up the sale, Howell says. Carden's busy trying to keep up with county paperwork on lot-splits.

"Escrow can't close until the county blesses everything and signs off on it," Howell said.

Right now, Carden has until May to get the lot-split approved, Howell said. But even if they don't make that deadline, she added, the school board could give Carden more time to work on it.

So far, Carden has paid about $800,000 toward the Grovedale sale, which is nonrefundable.