‘Let’s get it built’
Sanford looking for developers for historic site A
n early-morning blaze 4½years ago destroyed Sanford’s historic Little Red School House — one of the county’s first public schools — and left a vacant lot in the heart of the city’s historic residential district.
then, Sanford leaders have wanted to see new homes developed on the cityowned land at the northeast corner of South Palmetto Avenue and East Sixth Street.
“This is very desirable” property, Sanford Mayor Jeff Triplett said at a city meeting this month. “Let’s get it built.”
The lot is currently sursioners rounded by old Florida-style homes — many built in the mid-20th century — with broad front porches and second-story bedrooms. At a Dec. 10 city workshop, commissioners said they would like to see a mix of at least three small homes and a larger house that fit in with the area, rather than one large home. City commisSince agreed to put out a request for developers to submit proposals for the site.
“We want to make sure that it’s what we want,” Commissioner Art Woodruff said regarding future development. “I think that just having five cottage homes lined up there, that would not look right for the rest of the neighborhood. … There needs to be a mix.”
The Little Red School House — named for its red roof and shutters — was built in 1883 as a public school for white children. It had two classrooms, a small kitchen and 33 students in the first year it opened. As the area grew and more students enrolled, seven more classrooms were added in later years.
After the Little Red School House stopped serving students in the early 1960s, it was turned into a Head Start early-education center for preschoolers, a drug-treatment center for women and a soup kitchen.
Sanford’s residential historic district — where the schoolhouse once sat — was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in December 1989. The district is roughly bounded by Third
Street, Sanford Avenue, 14th Street and Elm Avenue.
The city took possession of the building in 2010 after the previous owner was unable to pay a propertytax bill of $7,000. The schoolhouse slowly fell into disrepair, and a city study showed the old building needed about $64,000 in renovations..
On July 3, 2014, an earlymorning fire destroyed the school house, leaving behind a pile of smoldering ashes. It was among six fires in four days that were deliberately set within Sanford’s historic district, authorities said.
State fire investigators named Steven Angle as a person of interest in nearly 30 cases of arson that summer in Orlando, Sanford, Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach. But Angle, 45, was never charged.
He is serving a 15-year sentence in state prison after pleading no contest in 2015 to kidnapping and raping a woman in a Seminole County citrus grove.
In 2013, about a year before the fire, city commissioners decided to try sell Sanford’s Little Red School House rather than spend money on renovations.
Now, city leaders would like to work with a developer to see new homes on the land.
“We’d like to sell it to a developer,” Woodruff said.