Westminster College appears to have the inside track in purchasing the Garfield School from Salt Lake City.

While Mayor Ralph Becker is expected to select the school's new owner this week, a selection committee last week recommended selling the Sugar House property to Westminster rather than a nonprofit school or a developer.

The committee cited Westminster's financial stability and its experience with historic preservation projects in naming the college as the top choice.

Westminster has proposed using the property as an extension of its campus, including a graduate and continuing education center and laboratory school.

Garfield's sale, the first major property disposal of Becker's administration, has captured the attention of neighbors, who have been following the process since voicing displeasure about the city's plan to turn the school into a fire or police station after purchasing it in 2006.

Longtime residents have mixed opinions on what should be done with the land.

Lance Olsen, a Ramona Avenue resident, was originally opposed to seeing the college expand its campus but said he changed his mind after a public meeting earlier this year.

"Westminster is already in the neighborhood," Olsen said. "I like the idea of a school being there instead of a developer building more houses."

Cindy Meir, who has lived on Ramona since 1985, also supports Westminster.

"I don't want condos," Meir said. "I like the look of the school. I like old architecture. I like things that fit into the neighborhood. That's why I don't live in Holladay."

But Shawn Rossiter, whose home would end up between the segmented campus, said Westminster, particularly its students, has not been a good neighbor.

"The general sense is that the student body isn't very respectful of the neighborhood," Rossiter said. "We've had a lot of nuisances from Westminster students."

He blamed Westminster students for brawls, drunken driving and even a recent drive-by shooting in the area.

Others, meanwhile, have criticized the city's handling of the sale, which is purely an administrative decision.

City leaders defended their efforts, rejecting notions of secrecy. Lisa Harrison-Smith, Becker's spokeswoman, said the mayor has gone above and beyond what is required by seeking out public comment and implementing a request-for-proposals process.

"The inference that this process is somehow 'behind the scenes' is false," Harrison-Smith said in a statement. "The selection committee evaluated the proposals with a clear set of criteria that reflected community concerns and ranked the proposals accordingly. The mayor will continue to look for ways to make Salt Lake City's governmental processes more open and transparent, as he did in this case."

e-mail: afalk@desnews.com