The Board of Education approved a contingency bid of $20.1 million to sell the building at 700 Font Boulevard to private land developers Tuesday.

The building housed the San Francisco School of the Arts until 2002 and stands at the border of the SF State campus.

The Riding Group, which in past years converted the Shriner’s Children’s Hospital on 19th Avenue into town homes and is currently building a five-to-seven-story building on waterfront property in Mission Bay, made the winning bid approved by a four-to-one vote.

“It’s a surplus property,” said San Francisco Unified School District Deputy Superintendent Myong Leigh of the building at the corner of Font Blvd and Tapia Drive, explaining why it was up for bidding. “It has no educational purpose for us, and has been vacant at least two years.”

Leigh voted in favor of accepting the bid, together with Commissioners Kim-Shree Maufas, Mark Sanchez, and Jill Wynns.

Commissioner Eric Mar voted against the sale, citing concerns that development will serve to further gentrify the neighborhood and create homes that lower income students will be unable to afford.

“I can tell you for sure that [The Riding Group] will take those kinds of issues into account because the city will force them to,” said Philip Smith, Director of Real Estate and Asset Management for the SFUSD, who had encouraged the board to accept the bid.

Smith pointed out that the sale would be an “arm’s-length transaction” and that SFUSD would have no control over what The Riding Group does with the property. But he added that the developers have a history of developing land in San Francisco and so have an understanding of what local politics require when it comes to accounting for environmental and economic impact.

Smith said the buyers wanted to begin organizing a meeting with the local landowners – of whom SF State is the largest by far – and district supervisor Sean Elsbernd to “facilitate the best avenues the Riding Group can take pursuing entitlement.”

Thomas Quaglia of The Riding Group was present at the meeting but declined to comment, saying he needed a couple weeks to perform due diligence and prepare to discuss the sale intelligently.

The contingency period of the sale is two years, at the end of which The Riding Group may still back out of the purchase. They will have to provide SFUSD with $100,000 as a deposit, which will increase to $250,000 in 90 days. By the end of the two year period, the amount on deposit will have increased to $1.25 million and will be non-refundable, Smith said.

The Board of Education opened the bidding last October. Prior to that, SF State had participated in a joint appraisal of the property and made a bid to SFUSD, but the bid was below market rate for the property and the district was not obligated to accept it, according to SFUSD Communications Director Gentle Blythe.