There may be new life for the old Brownsville Middle School building.

At the May 20 board meeting, Escambia School Board members will be asked to vote on contracts on two empty buildings in high-profile locations -- the middle school that has sat idle for years and A.V. Clubbs School on Cervantes Street.

Brownsville Middle, at Avery Street and Hollywood Avenue, has been vacant since it closed in the 2007-2008 school year as part of a rezoning effort in the district. In 2009, The Rev. LuTimothyMay and his congregation at Friendship Missionary Baptist church offered to buy the building, for $800,000 given the amount of work the building needed at that time. The district made a counteroffer of a little more than $1 million. An anonymous donor offered to give the church the difference, but the deal ultimately fell apart in acrimony.

In 2011, a $1 million deal to buy the building also fell through.

On Tuesday, the board will consider selling to The Rev. Paul Porterfield and Body of Christ Ministries Inc. for $500,000. Dennis says a 2012 appraisal put the value of the building and grounds at $550,000. It would close in 30 days.

Porterfield says the first order of business will be to use the building as a home for his church and to get a planned day-care center up and running.

Porterfield’s church, about 100 members strong, has been meeting at 2514 W. Cervantes St. next door to Kay’s Fashions and they look forward to having a new home. It has been in Pensacola for about seven years, he says.

Porterfield wants to develop the building in phases, though he says he plans for the entire structure ultimately to be occupied. Plans include rebuilding the library for public use, a community center that will host GED courses, vocational training, adult literacy classes and after-school programs focused on building students’ academic skills.

“It’s going to be more than just a place to go after school,” he says. “There will be more than basketball.”

The Fort Lauderdale native will name the library after his mother Gertrude Porterfield Smith, who he says worked in adult literacy in Fort Lauderdale as a passion in her life.

“I believe to help a man, you have him holistically,” he says. “For me as a pastor, my concern is with the soul of man, but I know that I also have to be concerned with his mental, physical and emotional well being as well.”

Porterfield said next week he hopes for contractors to go to the site and evaluate what work needs done. Vandals have damaged much of it.

“There is a lot of work that needs to be done,” Porterfield says. “We are looking at September as the time to get started being in the building. The daycare will be the primary objective and moving the church in. After that we will work diligently on opening the library.”

Allie Yniestra’s future

Board members also will be asked to approve a lease to purchase agreement for Allie Yniestra Elementary School, which closed in when it merged with Hallmark Elementary to form the new Global Learning Academy.

Remnant Church of Deliverance Christian Academy Inc., based in Evergreen Park, Ill., would like to lease-to-purchase Yniestra.

Tauro Jenkins pastors the church, which he founded in 1996 in the Chicago area.

There, Jenkins’ church built an educational center called The Well, which served the West Englewood neighborhood of the city.

It offered early education courses that Jenkins said put the 125 children who used his center “light-years” above their peers in school readiness because in that neighborhood, there were no other similar services.

That center’s success “is a testament to perseverance,” Jenkins says.

When the center first opened, the crime that plagued the neighborhood extended to the staff, whose cars often were broken into.

“But we felt committed to that community and we persevered and ultimately won the community over” in part through a close partnership with the neighborhood school.

Jenkins came to Pensacola when he was relocated through his job as a vice president of sales with the Borden Dairy company. Through his connections with his fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, he decided to try to set up a similar facility in Pensacola.

He credits Danny Zimmern of Scoggins Realty, the School District’s broker, with pointing him toward the Yniestra building, which he says is in great shape and just needs some cleaning up to be ready to go.

Jenkins says immediate plans for the building include starting a summer enrichment program to help keep children sharp through the summer. He looks to accommodate about 125 children in the program, which will run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and include academic, anger management and conflict resolution training and physical education.

It will be for children in grades K-10, Jenkins says.

He has nine volunteers, some fellow fraternity members who teach at Booker T. Washington High School, who have agreed to help run the summer program. Jenkins also has talked to Global Learning Academy Principal Sheree Cagle to help reach out to students who could benefit from the program.

The goal is to open the program by mid-June, Jenkins says.

The purchase price for the school at North Q and Jackson streets, is $550,000.

Dennis the agreement coming to the board is a scalable lease with rent that increases over the term of the agreement. The first three months’ rent is $2,200 a month; it jumps to $3,800 month then. The lease includes a 3 percent rent increase in the second year and a 10 percent rent increase in the third year.

“Our motto is: ‘Spark a revival and change a generation,’” Jenkins says. “And that’s what we aim to do.”

A.V. Clubbs future

A.V. Clubbs was last used as an alternative school in the 2009-2010 school year. It would be sold to White Development Co., based in Clearwater, for $1.1 million. Dennis says there are some zoning questions attached to the sale, but if all goes smoothly, it would close this fall.

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