School board’s 10-acre lot in Parkland to be sold to Broward Health for $14M

In a $14 million deal years in the making, the School Board of Broward County has agreed to sell 10 acres of land in Parkland amid a mounting budget crisis.

The taxpayer-funded Broward Health hospital system will purchase the property at the southwest corner of Trails End and University Drive after the school board voted Tuesday to approve the sale.

The deal comes as Broward County Public Schools reckons with a roughly $80 million budget deficit caused in large part by a student enrollment crisis. The district shut down six underenrolled schools this year and aims to make more changes to conserve costs.

The Trails End land isn’t the only large, vacant property the school board owns in Parkland. About two miles northwest is an 8.7-acre plot on the corner of Nob Hill Road and Hillsboro Boulevard.

The school board purchased the Trails End property in 2006 for roughly $5.9 million, using $850,000 contributed by the City of Parkland to build an elementary school. But the plans never materialized, and the district began the processing of assessing and selling the property several years ago.

Whether that $850,000 would go back to Parkland was a sticking point during the June 23 school board meeting. District staff said the resolution passed by Parkland 20 years ago didn’t state the school board owed the city that money if the district sold the land.

“They were promised to have a school,” said District 4 board member Lori Alhadeff, who represents Parkland. “We made the decision not to build a school there. And so now as good partners with the City of Parkland, we need to give them back the $850,000.”

In 2023, appraisers estimated the land’s value to be $13.9 million, and conversations began with Broward Health about purchasing the property, according to district documents. The hospital system owns two adjacent parcels.

The school board previously voted to authorize talks about selling the property to Broward Health with two stipulations. One, that the hospital create student educational opportunities through internships or some form of programming.

And two, that the hospital provide office space for Eagles’ Haven, an organization founded after the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that seeks to promote community healing and wellness.

But as talks got more underway in 2025, the hospital system reportedly tried driving a hard bargain and wanted to buy the property for less. The negotiators also struggled to decide whether the school board or Broward Health would bear the cost of building out the space for Eagles’ Haven.

The hospital system eventually agreed to a purchase price of $14 million and said it would donate nearly $1.6 million to Eagles’ Haven.

When the approval came before the board June 23, General Counsel Kathy Dupuy-Bruno recommended the board move forward with the sale itself and later sort out the matter of the $850,000. Board member Rebecca Thompson made a motion for the superintendent and general counsel to review the legal agreement and meet with Parkland officials, then come back with an item about the $850,000.

Dupuy-Bruno said her office could bring the follow-up item about the Parkland money before the board by the July 28 school board meeting. The members approved the motion with the amendment.

“I just want to say thank you to Broward Health for stepping up to do this, for hearing the intent that we had for the community to make sure we could make a sale of the land but partner to make sure the community is strong and healthy,” member Debra Hixon said.

Broward Health did not respond to an inquiry about the plans for the property by the time of publication.