Allan Appel Photo
The half-century old arts center has been shuttered since July.
Negotiations for the sale of the John Slade Ely House to the regional educational group ACES/ECA are reaching a critical stage, with a final deal hoped for before the end of the calendar year.
Also percolating and nearing completion is a separate agreement between the Friends of the John Slade Ely House, as the building’s primary initial tenant, and the presumed new landlord, ACES/ECA.
The crystal ball predictions of what the relationship will be like three years hence are far murkier.
That was the takeaway from the latest probate court proceeding Thursday regarding the future of the shuttered, beloved community arts center on Trumbull Street.
It was the fourth hearing convened in Judge Frank Forgione’s North Branford Probate Court since Wells Fargo decided to put the house on the market, triggering widespread outrage among artists and the formation of the Friends of the John Slade Ely House. Wells Fargo is the trustee for the estate that owns the property. Artists — backed by the city and the Community Foundation — sought to stop a sale that would eliminate the building as an arts center, and have made progress on a new deal to preserve that function.
Concomitant with a sale by Wells Fargo Bank, the proposed new lease agreement discussed in court Thursday calls for the prospective new owner, ACES Educational Center for the arts (ACES/ECA), to lease the property to the Friends for about 18 months.
Friends’ volunteer lawyer Ron Pacacha.
A new not-for-profit in formation will, in turn, sublease to long-established community arts groups based at the building, like the New Haven Paint and Clay Club and the Brush and Palette Club, to mount their exhibitions and have workshop space.
However, after a year and a half, the building would close for renovations for future use by ECA and maybe additions. The only art going on during this second phase would be architecture and construction.
What the new space will look like is unknowable at this point. Additions are contemplated that may ease school and artists’ tensions over whose building it will really be, such as conflicts about access and hours. Also unknowable is what fundraising capacity the Friends will have attained in two and half years, and whether they would remain at the building or have capacity to resettle elsewhere in town.
Therefore all the parties will have to sit down again and renegotiate a new lease before the building reopens some time in mid 2018.
At the early morning proceeding at the North Branford Town Hall, all the parties expressed optimism about the process, which has been lead by Jackie Downing of the Greater New Haven Community Foundation
Click here for a story about last month’s hearing, which details the three-phase plan she has helped to fashion.
Thursday morning ACES/ECA did not have a final sale agreement to present to Judge Forgione. City arts czar Andy Wolf, who has played a broker’s role in bringing parties together, said that appraisals on the Ely House have been done and that they revealed remediation issues that are affecting the purchase price the parties will ultimately agree on.
The Friends’ volunteer attorney, Ron Pacacha (pictured), brought to the hearing a lease term sheet, also in process. “We’re just a couple of small points away from finalizing our term sheet for the lease for phase one,” he said.
The clubs have not paid rent for half a century, so the lease will ultimately have occupancy costs like rent, utilities, and insurance, for the first time. Most of those numbers have already been agreed upon, said Downing.
However, other issues remain to be worked out, like how to “recapture” rental income paid to the Friends during the first phase if they rent to organizations other than the clubs associated with the house.
Another example of outstanding issues in a third phase: ACES/ECA is offering the Friends a right of first offer for space, but only for three years. The Friends want the landlord, in the spirit of the long-standing history, to entertain more than three years.
A sensitive issue that Judge Forgione several times raised was the extent of the Trust’s commitment, after the presumed sale, to continue to support the Friends and the clubs — both during the first phase when rent and utilities will need to be paid and in the second phase, when the building is closed down for renovation and shows occur in rented spaces.
“That’s why we’re negotiating vigorously” on the sale price to ACES/ECA, replied the Trust’s attorney Aaron Bayer, “so the money will be there to distribute.”
ACES chief Tom Danehy, far right, huddles with his team after the hearing.
In a memo she distributed summarizing the state of the talks, Downing wrote: “The trustees’ support of rent for phase one is critical to the success for all parties.”
By the same token, the Friends are professionalizing and gearing up to raise money on their own. Their provisional budget calls for raising $20,000 in contributed income in the first year, along with $8,000 in rental income, and $30,000 from the Trust to cover the building’s operational costs for curated shows as well as those by the clubs.
Judge Forgione said he does not want to bring 35 people together for a hearing again unless the agreements — on the sale and purchase as well as the lease to the Friends — are near to completion.
Without setting a specific date, he urged the matter to come to completion in the two weeks after Thanksgiving.
On Nov. 1, at a location yet to be determined, the Friends are convening an advisory board of non-profit professionals who can help them move forward. Anyone interested should be in touch with the group’s president, Jeanne Criscola, here.
“Everybody wins,” said Wolf, who is already a member of the advisory group.
