Question: I attended a meeting of the West Washington Park  Neighbors last night and I heard the city did a swap for the land across from Byers School. I heard it was for sale now. Is the school for sale too? Who is Dot and can she answer?

- Dan Unger

Revealing Dot’s identity would compromise his future detective work, but he definitely can answer the question.

In the land swap referred to in the question, Denver Public Schools acquired property at 2200 7th St. and the city acquired a lot at East Cedar and Pearl Street, across from the former Byers Middle School building at 150 S. Pearl St. The Byers building, which is currently vacant, was not part of the exchange, according to a city finance committee report.

DPS’ office of facility management has not announced plans to put the Byers building up for sale or reopen it. In 2003, the building was looked at as a possible site for a south campus of the School of the Arts, once headquartered at Byers, but that did not materialize.
The long-term future of the Byers building is up in the air.

According to a Jan. 26 article by Nancy Micthell that appeared in the Rocky Mountain News:

Several DPS schools, including Byers, Crofton, Rosedale and Gove, are either “mothballed” or being used for non-classroom “education functions,” awaiting decisions about future use, according to Mike Langley, DPS executive director of facility management.

So, for now it looks like Byers will be an unused DPS property.

Curious about what the school district is thinking about doing with the land it acquired from the city at 2200 7th St.?

Use it to build a new school, of course.