Thomas Breen file photo
311 Valley St.: En route from NHPS to city ownership?
Maya McFadden photo
Alder Smith: The former West Hills school should become a place for public meetings and other neighborhood activities.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) has officially begun the process of handing over to city government two vacant former school buildings in West Hills and Fair Haven Heights.
The school’s superintendent, Madeline Negrón, made that proposal in a June 9 memo to the Board of Education.
The school board’s Finance & Operations Committee heard the proposal at its most recent online meeting on Tuesday, as part of a section of the agenda called “Retirement Surplus Buildings.”
The committee recommended approval of the district’s proposal to retire responsibility for the former West Rock STREAM Academy at 311 Valley St. and the former Quinnipiac Real World STEM School at 460 Lexington Ave., also known as 805 Quinnipiac Ave.
The city’s public school district closed West Rock STREAM Academy and Quinnipiac School in 2021 due to HVAC issues. The buildings have been vacant ever since.
If approved by the full Board of Education and the city’s Board of Alders, this current proposal would see NHPS transfer jurisdiction of the two buildings to the City of New Haven.
Negrón’s June 9 memo states that the proposal was to be heard on June 13 by the school board’s City-wide School Building and Stewardship Committee before heading to the board’s Finance & Operations Committee on June 17, with final approval to be requested from the full school board on June 23.
“These vacant buildings are outdated for modern school purposes and have suffered deterioration that would require significant infrastructure improvements in order to restore them for public school use,” Negrón wrote to the Board of Ed. “Due to preliminary information from our facilities study, declining enrollment and significant budgetary constraints, further investment in these vacant buildings is not feasible.”
The goal, Negrón said, is for NHPS to no longer be responsible for utility and grounds maintenance costs for each of the two buildings.
If approved by the Board of Education, district officials will perform a walk through of the buildings to determine if there are any items that can be preserved. The resolutions would then be presented to the Board of Alders on July 7.
The memo also states that the district will issue “a strong recommendation that the Board of Alders consider allowing any proceeds from the sale of the properties to be allocated to the Board of Education Capital Budget to support specific school facilities, renovations and repairs throughout the district.”
It lists such repairs that could be funded by the sale of these two school buildings:
• New roofs at Hillhouse, Career, Wilbur Cross, Betsy Ross, HSC and Sound School.
• Restoration of Wilbur Cross’s swimming pool.
• Critical IT upgrades.
• HVAC replacements and upgrades at multiple locations.
On Thursday, Mayor Justin Elicker — who also sits on the Board of Education — told the Independent that he’s in support of the district surplus-ing these two empty school buildings to the city.
If the city does indeed take control of these properties, it would “put both buildings up for RFP and receive proposals” from anyone interested in putting these back to productive use.
“It’s early for us to jump to conclusions about what kind of proposals might come in,” he said. “In general, when the city puts up properties that it owns [for sale], we want it to align with our values and goals,” whether that be affordable housing or some other productive use.
Asked if the city is considering selling West Rock STREAM Academy to Rev. Boise Kimber’s new charter school, given that Kimber expressed interest back in 2023 in using $2 million in state funds to try to acquire the Valley Street public building, Elicker said he hasn’t heard from Kimber “in a couple years” about whether or not he’s still interested in this property. (Click here to read a recent interview with Kimber about that charter school, which is slated to open on Dixwell Avenue in Newhallville this fall.)
Nevertheless, Elicker concluded on Thursday, “we want to hear proposals from whoever’s interested” in putting these two empty school buildings back to use.
In a separate interview Thursday, West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda Smith said that, if the city takes ownership of the Valley Street former school building, she hopes the property is put to community use — perhaps as a public meeting space or host for assorted neighborhood activities.
“There’s housing here, but not enough greenspaces for our residents,” she said.
Thomas Breen contributed to this report.