New Haven Independent

Spring is the season for renewal not only of the earth, but also of the Board of Education’s leases for space it rents in at least six buildings around the city, including its own headquarters at the Gateway Center on Meadow Street.

The BOE is a reluctant renter. But with so much juggling of schools in temporary space due to new construction, swing or temporary spaces are a must until the new schools are complete. Landlords don’t appear to be giving the children of New Haven and their BOE any philanthropically inspired reduced rates, either.

At this week’s BOE Administration and Finance Committee meeting, members gave their approval to exercise options to renew their commercial leases on no fewer than six properties.

These included 495 Blake St., where the Metropolitan Business Academy (MBA) hangs its hat until its new Water Street building is completed in the summer of 2009.

The MBA’s rent there is $25,127.29 a month, or $301, 527.50 for the year beginning in July and running through June 2009.

At the same site, the BOE’s Early Childhood Learning Center will be paying monthly rent of $7,841.16, or about $94,000 for the year.

The BOE’s chief operating officer, Will Clark (pictured below on the left with A & F committe member Michael Nast), described the MBA’s landlord, FPJ Investments, as “pretty good.” By that he meant, “When we have a problem out there, like the roof, they do come out and meet us.”

The Catholic Church, or specifically St. Stanislaus on State Street, has been housing Worthington Hooker’s grades three through eight for some three years now to the tune of $33,468 a month, or about $400,000 for the year.

“I promise you,” said Clark, “we will be out of there as soon as possible.” The Hooker Middle School on Whitney is expected to open in the summer of 2009.

“Look,” he said, “we try to rent short term and get out as soon as possible. Our goal is not to have leases in general,” he said when committee member Nast asked, for example, about the cost for the BOE’s main warehouse space at 80 Hamilton St., which was also renewed for $11,000 or about $133,000 for the year.

“Wouldn’t it be advisable to own our own warehouse space?”

“Maybe,” conceded Clark, “but except for funding in citywide school construction for new school buildings, the Board just doesn’t have a spare $10 million to buy a building.”

Since the State of Connecticut took over the BOE’s main warehouse complex at 444 Chapel St. last summer for offices in preparation for the DOT’s work on the I-95 redo and specifically the rebuilding of the Q Bridge, BOE warehouse operations, along with offices for a number of programs, moved to 80 Hamilton. There, according to Clark, are supplies ranging from science kits to hockey sticks, from chairs to toilets to snowplows. In addition there’s some office space for the English Language Learners and other programs.

Not even the board’s headquarters is its own. At Monday’s meeting, the committee voted to renew the lease for half a floor at the Gateway Center on Meadow Street for $5,000 a month, not to exceed $59,823 for the year

“We’re paying $60,000 for half a floor?” asked A & F committee member Nast.

“That’s right,” responded Clark. The eighth floor contains office space for some departments, for curriculum people, and also Gilbane Construction, which supervises many of the new school-building projects. But the Gateway Center is an unusual situation for the BOE. Not only do they have a piece of the eighth floor, but all of the second, third, fourth, and fifth. “And the building is a condo situation,” Clark further explained to Nast. “So that means the $60,000 on the eighth floor is a little like paying ourselves.”

In the one situation on Monday night, when the BOE turned the tables and was the landlord, it voted to renew the lease of their Welch Annex School off Ella Grasso Boulevard to Elm City College Prep for about $100,000 for the year.

In another year, school construction chief Weisselberg added, the BOE may be “surplussing,” that is removing Welch Annex from active use and voting to turn it over to the city for renovation for other purposes or for sale.

Could such spaces be useful for a potential warehouse?

Both Clark and Weisselberg were skeptical that old buildings in the city’s portfolio that have been designated for surplussing might fill the bill, as per Michael Nast’s suggestions. That is, conversion for a warehouse so the BOE would have fewer monthly rent bills to contend with.

“These old spaces are usually on too small a foot print to accommodate trucks leaving and entering,” Weisselberg said.

“And we’ve learned,” Clark added, “that when you take an old building… They’re not easy to rehabilitate for something like a warehouse use, and that well might not be so cost-effective.”

The leases all have modest increases that were built into them from the initial contracts. The administration and finance committee approved the leases and now sends them to the full BOE for approval on March 24.