OU easily selling old Tulsa campus properties

Thursday, December 14th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The University of Oklahoma has had no problems selling many of the properties bought for a planned expansion of the former Tulsa campus of the OU Health Sciences Center, according to university officials.

The university planned to expand the 20-acre Tulsa campus and bought much of the property within the past couple of years in anticipation of the expansion.

But officials scrapped expansion of the old campus a year ago when the college decided to buy the former BP Amoco technology center complex.

OU paid $24 million for the new campus, using a $10 million grant from the Schusterman Foundation and loans from the University of Oklahoma Foundation.

The new campus allowed the college to consolidate nursing and health programs that had been in different areas of Tulsa, said OU-Tulsa President Ken Lackey.

About 500 are enrolled at the new campus. It spans 60 acres and includes 385,000 square feet of buildings.

The old campus covered 20 acres and had 115,000 square feet of space.

``All the properties will be sold for what they cost, or for what they are appraised,'' Lackey said. ``We feel very fortunate we've hit a good market.''

In the past week, the college sold a 20-unit apartment building for $400,000 and the former College of Medicine Library, said Leeland Alexander, college vice president.

The library was sold to St. Augustine Properties LLC for $925,000, Alexander said.

The library building is already home to the 100-student St. Augustine Academy, said Mike Craddock, who represented the private Christian school in the sale.

``They moved in this fall. They had been renting space in Broken Arrow,'' Craddock said.

Alexander said more sales should be announced next week, including a small shopping center bought by the college but never remodeled or used, a large corner tract and a small office building.

OU will continue to operate a child abuse justice center and clinic at the old campus.