The Wichita City Council has delayed final action on a real estate agreement to sell a building that was formerly used as a homeless shelter.

The Council voted on April 9th to approve the sale of the former Fundamental Learning Center building at 2220 East 21st Street north.  The building was used during the past winter as an emergency homeless shelter by HumanKind Ministries.    The building is to be sold to Habitat For Humanity for use as a headquarters and warehouse.

After the sale was approved, it was discovered that two sections of the agreement were inadvertently left out.  One section deals with future use of the building and there will be restrictions that will remain in place to prohibit certain uses of the property, such as a halfway house, a casino or for other specified purposes.   The missing sections are not critical for the deal to move forward.

Habitat is committed to use the property for at least two years, and Council members J.V. Johnston and Dalton Glasscock asked to have an amendment stating that if Habitat decides to leave the property before that two year period ends, it would be sold back to the city.

A motion to approve had three yes votes, two no votes and one abstention, and it needed four votes to pass.   A motion was made to delay action on the agreement until the May 7th Council meeting, and that was approved with five votes and one abstention.   Mayor Lily Wu was absent from the meeting because of a U.S. Embassy-sponsored trip to Switzerland with eight other women mayors from the U.S.