Lincoln High School Lease Documents Differ on Purchase Price: $10 or Full Market Value

The Montgomery County Council is scheduled to vote Nov. 17 on leasing the former Lincoln High School in Rockville’s Lincoln Park neighborhood to a nonprofit, and the documents in the Council packet give two different terms for buying the property.

A Council staff report and a draft Council resolution say the Lincoln High School Community Development Corporation (CDC) may buy the former school “at full market value.” The term sheet dated March 31 and signed by the county and the CDC, and a public notice the county published in July, set the purchase price at $10.

The resolution is on the Council’s Nov. 10 agenda for introduction as Item 1C, with action scheduled for Nov. 17, according to the 53-page Council packet.

What each document says

The Council staff report, prepared by Legislative Analyst Naeem M. Mia, says the County Executive proposed a lease of five years “with an option to purchase at full market value (the County retains the right of first refusal)” (staff report, page 1).

The draft resolution the Council will vote on says: “Lincoln High School Community Development Corporation has the option to purchase the property at full market value at any time during the term of the lease; the County retains the right of first refusal” (circle page 50, paragraph 5).

The March 31 term sheet, signed for the county by Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Fariba Kassiri and for the CDC by its president, the Rev. Barry Moultrie, says: “Tenant shall have the option to purchase the Property for Ten and 00/100 Dollars ($10.00) (the ‘Purchase Price’) at any time during the term, upon 90 days’ written notice to Landlord” (circle page 12).

The term sheet uses the phrase “full market value” in the next sentence, for a different right: any deed transferring the Lincoln High School property must give the county a right of first refusal “to purchase the property at full market value at the time of a future sale” (circle page 12).

The county’s public notice of the proposed lease, which ran in the Washington Times on July 6, 13 and 20, used the same $10 wording as the term sheet: “Tenant shall have the option to purchase the Property for Ten and 00/100 Dollars ($10.00) (the ‘Purchase Price’) at any time during the term, upon 90 days’ written notice to Landlord” (circle page 25; the Executive’s memo identifies the notice as a Washington Times advertisement on circle page 3).

County Executive Marc Elrich’s Sept. 10 memo sending the proposal to the Council describes the term sheet as “a non-binding Term Sheet for Lincoln High School CDC to lease the property with option to purchase” and does not state a purchase price (circle pages 1 to 3).

The Lincoln High School term sheet calls itself non-binding and says the formal lease “alone shall, upon execution and delivery by both Landlord and Tenant, contain the legal obligations between the parties” (circle page 13). Moderately MOCO did not find a draft lease among the 53 pages of the Council packet.

The draft resolution’s action paragraph approves the transfer of the property to the CDC “as recommended by the County Executive in his transmittal memo dated September 10, 2026 and for the uses specified in the term sheet executed between the County and Lincoln High School Community Development Corporation on March 31, 2026” (circle page 51).

Rent of $10 a month, and the county pays for repairs

The Lincoln High School term sheet sets rent at $10 a month, or $120 a year, for the first five-year term, rising to $20 a month in the first five-year extension and $310 a month in the fourth, with yearly increases of 3% to 5% (circle page 11).

The term sheet gives the county’s reasons for the rent: “The school holds deep historical and cultural value for Montgomery County’s Black community,” and “the value of this public interest to the County is reflected in the rent schedule shown below” (circle page 11).

Under the term sheet, the county is responsible for “the initial renovations necessary for Tenant’s Permitted Use” and, during the lease, for repairs to the school building’s structure and its electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems (circle page 12). The CDC would pay operating costs, including utilities, landscaping, snow removal, janitorial services and security (circle page 12).

The draft resolution directs the County Executive to put language in any lease saying that county capital improvements to the property “are subject to funding appropriation by the Council” (circle page 51).

The county already appropriated $5.0 million in fiscal 2023 to replace the Lincoln High School roof, repair the building envelope and make code-compliance improvements, and that work is complete, the draft resolution says (circle page 50). A structural and environmental assessment by the county in March 2020 found “that it was in significant disrepair since the end of its lease to Crusader Baptist Church of God,” the draft resolution says of the building (circle pages 49 to 50).

What the nonprofit plans

The Lincoln High School CDC intends to “present the history and significance of the original school” and to provide a business incubator with a kitchen for small businesses, tutoring, vocational training, mentorship for parents and space for community events, the Council staff report says (page 1).

In a July 22 letter to the county, Moultrie wrote that the CDC was chartered in 2025 and plans “to set aside an area of this building as a replica of the original classroom space and use it as a historical museum” (circle page 27).

“The Lincoln High School was built because Black students in Montgomery County were denied equal access to educational opportunity,” Moultrie said in testimony quoted in Elrich’s Sept. 10 memo (circle page 1).

The Lincoln Park Civic Association, Rockville Bike Hub and Rockville Science Center jointly submitted a different plan for the building on July 22, a “Lincoln Park Nonprofit Hub” housing a coalition of nonprofits, according to the proposal in the Council packet (circle pages 29 to 40).

Lincoln High School’s history

Lincoln High School opened in 1935 in an abandoned building moved from Takoma Park, “covered with brick, given an Art Deco door surround,” according to Montgomery History’s Lincoln Park History Project, adapted from a 1993 City of Rockville exhibit.

In 1950, Carver High School on Hungerford Drive replaced Lincoln, “which then became the only junior high school in the county for Black students,” Montgomery History says. The draft Council resolution says Lincoln closed in 1961 “after the county-wide desegregation of public schools” (circle page 49).

The City of Rockville’s 2007 Lincoln Park Neighborhood Plan calls the school “of unusual importance both to the history of Rockville and to the development of a black educational system within the Montgomery County public school system” and lists it as a city historic district (page 41 of the PDF).

The Montgomery County Board of Education deeded the Lincoln High School property to the county in 1992, and the county leased it to Crusader Baptist Church of God for 10 years, the Executive’s memo and the draft resolution say (circle pages 1 and 49). The building at 595 North Stonestreet Avenue is now vacant (circle page 1).

What comes next

For a closed school, the Council “is not required to hold a public hearing before acting” on the disposition, the staff report says (page 1). The County Executive’s office held its own public hearing on Aug. 10 (circle page 3).

The Washington Business Journal reported the county’s plan to lease the school to the CDC on Aug. 31, as Bethesda Magazine noted in its Sept. 2 news roundup.

All 11 members of the current Council are scheduled to vote on the resolution Nov. 17. New Council terms begin Dec. 7, so the decision falls to the outgoing Council. Residents can reach councilmembers through the Council’s website.

Councilmember	Seat
Natali Fani-González, Council President	District 6
Marilyn Balcombe, Council Vice President	District 2
Shebra Evans	At-large
Andrew Friedson	District 1
Evan Glass	At-large
Will Jawando	At-large
Sidney Katz	District 3
Dawn Luedtke	District 7
Kristin Mink	District 5
Laurie-Anne Sayles	At-large
Kate Stewart	District 4

Still unanswered

• Is the purchase price in the lease the county would sign $10, as in the term sheet and public notice, or full market value, as in the staff report and draft resolution?
• Does the resolution’s approval of the transfer “for the uses specified in the term sheet” carry the term sheet’s $10 purchase option with it?
• Will the Council see a draft lease before it votes, and what is the property’s estimated market value?

We have not yet put these questions to Montgomery County, the Council or the Lincoln High School Community Development Corporation; this story will be updated with any response.

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