POCATELLO — The Downard Funeral Home building could soon have a date with a wrecking ball.

The School District 25 Board of Trustees on Tuesday night voted during a special session to approve district officials authoring a letter of intent to purchase the Downard Funeral Home property at 241 N. Garfield Ave. for $500,000.

The vote to approve the letter of intent was approved unanimously by the board.

“The purpose of this letter is to outline the manner in which the district proposes to acquire the property,” the letter of intent says. “The parties recognize that the transaction will require further documentation and approvals, including the preparation and approval of a formal agreement setting forth the terms and conditions of the proposed purchase, nevertheless, the parties execute this letter to evidence their intention to proceed in mutual good faith to complete work required to negotiate terms of a mutually acceptable purchase and sale agreement that are consistent with this letter.”

In addition to the funeral home, which has been closed since September 2021 as the result of an ongoing criminal investigation into its owner Lance Peck, which resulted in the filing of 63 misdemeanor charges against him last month, the property includes the parking lot to the south of the building and the green space on the north side of the building.

The letter of intent is not binding, but is rather intended as a negotiating tool to “identify and propose mutually agreeable terms,” the district’s letter states. The letter was sent to Peck’s real estate agents to start the negotiation process.

During the special session Tuesday, School District 25 Director of Business Jonathan Balls said the parking lot south of the Downard building contains approximately 55 parking spaces. School District 25 Superintendent Doug Howell, in responding to a question from board member Heather Clarke, explained the funeral home building is in such a condition that it could never be used for instructional purposes.

Several bodies in various states of decomposition were located inside the funeral home as part of the Pocatello police investigation into Peck and his operation of the business.

Balls said that if the Downard building is leveled, it would add approximately 55 more parking spaces to the lot, and the 110 spaces would be used for students attending Pocatello High School, which is located across the street from Downard.

One District 25 official estimated about 500 of Pocatello High School’s 1,500 students drive to school every day. Being landlocked by surrounding infrastructure, finding additional parking spaces for Pocatello High School aside from the lots west of Downard near the school’s wrestling building, in front of the school across North Arthur Avenue and southwest of the school on the corner of North Garfield and West Clark Street has been difficult for district officials.

“This helps,” Balls said about the district’s plan to purchase the Downard property and turn it into a parking lot. “It doesn’t solve the parking lot issue but it helps.”

The letter of intent states the district intends to purchase the Downard property no later than Oct. 14.

Peck was arrested on Aug. 30 at his North Garfield Avenue home and charged with 60 counts of violating the Idaho Mortician’s Code of Conduct and three counts of petit theft. He posted a $20,000 bond on Aug. 31 and was released from Bannock County Jail.

On Monday, Peck’s Pocatello attorney Richard J. Blok and Bannock County prosecutors agreed to delay the pre-trial portion of the case until December, primarily because more time is needed to review the 4,500 pages of investigative material in the case.

The investigation into Peck’s operation of the funeral home first began when officials with the Idaho Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses, which oversees the state’s Board of Morticians, visited Downard on Sept. 1, 2021, and observed conditions that were in violation of the board’s laws and rules. The Idaho Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses then contacted the Pocatello Police Department to report the findings.

The division had received several complaints about Peck and Downard before visiting the funeral home.

Peck surrendered his license to operate Downard on Sept. 1, 2021, and on Sept. 3, 2021, police executed a search warrant at the funeral home as well as the crematory located in the same building.

As a result of the search warrant, Pocatello police located 12 bodies in various stages of decomposition, approximately 50 fetuses in jars and dozens of unidentified cremated remains. Police also confiscated thousands of digital and paper records from Downard.

Police were eventually able to positively identify the 12 bodies and determine the fetuses were part of a biological science collection donated from the University of Utah to Idaho State University and then to Downard for destruction. But they were never destroyed, police said.

Authorities earlier this month said the investigation grew to include 88 deceased individuals whose bodies were in some way handled by Peck.

Authorities have previously said more serious felony charges will be filed against Peck at a later date. Most general felonies in Idaho carry a five-year statute of limitations while the misdemeanors filed against Peck had to have been filed no later than one year from when the investigation was initially launched.

If convicted of all the misdemeanor charges filed against him, Peck faces a maximum sentence of over 30 years in jail.