With the high bidder disqualified, a Newburyport-based nonprofit group yesterday was awarded the right to put eight moderately priced, subsidized condos on the 20,000-square-foot rectangle where the Maplewood School has been since 1899.

North Shore Housing Trust would pay the city $325,000 for the school building and land.

The high bidder, the nonprofit Gloucester Development Team, had offered $350,000, but after its principal, local builder Kirk Noyes, announced he would not raze the old school as the city requires, purchasing agent Everett Brown declared his company's application invalid.

Noyes said he understood and will not pursue the matter.

"All I wanted to do was to get our foot in the door," he said after learning of Brown's decision. "A valuable resource should not be thrown away."

Noyes said he had hoped to convince the city to allow him to redevelop the two-story brick school into condos.

Brown said he rejected Noyes' high bid "based on what he told me and what I read in the newspaper."

In Saturday's Times, Noyes said, "I will not tear that building down."

Counting Noyes' short-lived high bid - proposals were opened Friday - the North Shore Housing Trust becomes the third developer to take on the difficult assignment of bringing the Maplewood Avenue property back to productive use in exchange for a one-time infusion of cash to the city.

The original high bidder, the Alpine Builders' team of three brothers, won rights to the property in 2004 when the asking price was twice as high, but was thwarted by the city's refusal to waive zoning to allow 30 housing units, and by an abutters' suit against the 15 units Alpine was willing to build in a scaled-down proposal.

The denser proposal would have provided for underground parking.

Laura Buxbaum, interim executive director of North Shore Housing Trust, said she was "thrilled" to learn the city had chosen its proposal. She said the project for first-time home-buyers would "fit the neighborhood."

She promised close communication with the neighbors "to make sure they know what's going on" and allow them input on design.

The North Shore Housing Trust has experience in Gloucester, entering mid-project to bring to market in 2005 a block of below-market condos on Granite Street that had been jeopardized by mismanagement.

Robert Gillis, vice president of Cape Ann Savings Bank and a director of the North Shore Housing Trust, was credited with orchestrating the successful completion of the troubled, heavily subsidized project, which was begun by the Community Land Trust of Cape Ann, on whose board Gillis also served.

Nancy Schwoyer, a founder of the nonprofit Wellspring House that with state and local subsidies redeveloped the former LePage's factory property on Essex Avenue in West Gloucester into Pond View Village, the city's largest mixed-income housing complex, also serves on the housing trust board.

North Shore Housing Trust estimated costs of $2.5 million to raze Maplewood School and put up four duplexes, modular units projected to sell to first-time buyers at prices between $162,500 and $172,000.

The trust's submission to the city for the Maplewood building underscored its need for "significant public and private subsidies to be successful," but noted it was "confident" it could "obtain these subsidies with support from the city."

In its business plan, the trust projected it would need subsidies equal to about half the development's cost. Four duplex homes separated by garages for each of the units would be built, according to the proposal.

North Shore Housing Trust's most recent effort involved the $2.7 million adaptation of the historic Whipple School annex in Ipswich into 10 units of affordable senior housing.

Maplewood was built as a neighborhood school at the turn of the last century, before the advent of motor vehicles, and was left vacant when Pathways for Children vacated the building in 2003.

The paucity of off-street and on-street parking was but one of the challenges that Alpine, the first winning bidder, was unable to overcome. Owners of nearby homes worried that the 30 and then 15 proposed housing units would bring in too much traffic and block sunlight and views.

Alpine also discovered widespread asbestos on the site and other expensive site preparation problems.

North Shore Housing Trust has 90 days to negotiate a purchase and sales agreement with the city.

Maplewood was the first surplus property put up for sale after a number of charges against the municipal stabilization fund in 2003 helped trigger a downgrade in the city's bond rating.

Two smaller city properties have been successfully sold and redeveloped, returning about $500,000 to the fund.

Noyes is known in Gloucester for his adaptive reuse of old, if not historic properties, the most visible of which was the recently completed redevelopment of the former Methodist Church on Prospect Street into apartments.