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The City of Marco Island may soon enter into negotiations with Collier County School District staff to acquire one of the last pieces of undeveloped land on the island not owned by the city.

District and city officials met in July about how the district and the island could swap the parcel, known as Tract K, for other property off the island, according to Michele LaBute, chief operations officer for the district.

Since then, City Manager Bill Moss said he has stayed in contact with the school district, but is awaiting word from them to move forward. He said district staff expressed a desire to discuss the details with new Superintendent Dennis Thompson.

“I know we’re going for a deal on it, but I can’t really discuss the details of it,” Moss said. He said he hopes to set up a meeting sometime in the next week.

Tract K, which is on the west side of Tigertail Court between Somerset and Century drives, was given to the School District by the Deltona Corp., the developer of modern Marco, for use as a future school site.

In March 2006, the Collier County School Board had discussions about selling Tract K, but those discussions were met with anger from Marco city officials and residents, several of whom wanted the district to build a school on the site.

District officials have said the size of the property is too small to do that. LaBute has said that while the district does not require a specific number of students before it builds a high school, the school board’s prototype has been 2,000 students for a small high school. Small high schools are typically built on 50 to 60 acres, she said, but Tract K is 11.6 acres.

Moss said the city would probably use Tract K as open space or space that would have “passive use,” which would mean the land could be used as a park.

“There are no plans to put hard structures there,” he said.

LaBute said the district would have to trade the property in a non-cash deal and the district cannot give away the property.

“We want to come up with an equitable deal for all parties involved,” she said, adding that it could mean trading Tract K for other property and/or combining that with a land lease. LaBute said all the property the district is considering in a trade is property the city owns off the island.

LaBute said the district has been offered some land in Belle Meade, which is in Golden Gate Estates, but the land is not developable for the district.

“We want to make sure the properties conveyed to the city are acceptable to the school board,” he said.

In 1989, the district filed a lawsuit against the Deltona over the appropriate disposition of Tract K and three other parcels the company gave the district. A settlement was negotiated and the lawsuit was dismissed. School site properties were conveyed by warranty deed to the school board.

The Marco Island Vision Advisory Committee, the group that was formed to develop Marco’s master plan, listed the site as property that should be “land banked” in 1994. The school board discussed using the land to build a kindergarten- through third-grade school in 1998. In 2003, the board voted to build the Marco Island Charter Middle School on Tract K, but a nest of bald eagles was found on the site in December 2003.

Eagles are protected by federal guidelines, which provide a primary protection zone for the endangered birds, and disturbing their nests is prohibited. At the time, the Endangered Species Act restricted new construction within 750 feet of an eagle nest all year and within 1,500 feet during the nesting season. The eagle was removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species in June.

The body decided in August 2004 to build the charter middle school next to Tommie Barfield Elementary, 101 Kirkwood St.

LaBute, who pointed out that the district did not have any plans to build another school on the island, said the meeting was preliminary and that no decisions on Tract K have been made.

“We want to do what’s right for the community and what’s right for the district,” she said.

— With additional reporting by Leslie Williams