Real estate panel explains its Memorial Boulevard School decision

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Members of the city's Real Estate Committee -- Councilors Kevin Fuller, Ken Cockayne and Eric Carlson -- issued this statement today about their rejection of the Central Connecticut Chambers of Commerce proposal for the reuse of Memorial Boulevard School: 

The city's Real Estate Committee at work.

The Real Estate Committee would like to respond to theChambers comments on the rejection of the Memorial Boulevard Proposal. From theday we open the proposal we as a committee noticed that after the RFP went out,the wording was incorrect. We were looking for proposals that included leaseand or purchase. The purchase was not included. At the opening of the bidsthere was a group interested in a possible purchase but we decided to hear outthe Chambers plan. Some of the numbers that were put out by the chamber were alittle misleading, for example they work off the number of 153,000 to keep thebuilding running which is a number provided to us by the Board ofEducation.  If we do nothing then this iswhat it will cost the city. That number is what it cost when the school wasfull and the boilers were shut down to a lower temperature after 3 pm. Thenumber to have the building empty until we find the right fit is more along thelines of 25 thousand to 30 thousand. If we take the 24 thousand the Chamber planproposed that would leave the cities Burden of over 100 thousand a year for atleast 3 years if not more. In addition to that amount the unknown was a bigconcern to us, The city would be responsible for  any capitol repairs and that  would be on the taxpayers of Bristol. It wasthis committees feeling that this was too much to ask in these economic times.We feel that we needed to go back out to RFP to solicit a more detailedproposal that would included independant financing for the theater along with parking plans and ADA compliant plans that would bring it up to code fortheir use.  The Real Estate Committee hasoften gone back out to RFP when we felt that we were not completely satisfiedwith the response. In this case we felt that the financial impact to thetaxpayers was more than we were willing to take a chance on and decided toreissue the RFP with the inclusion of purchase.  The building as it standswill not be totally unused during this RFP process. We will continue to letgroups use the building and theatre for community functions and activities.  We would also like to say for the record thatduring each meeting that pertained to this RFP the committee DID ASK QUESTIONSconcerning the plan unlike being reported. We don't feel we missed a opportunitywe feel we are allowing opportunities for more response's to this Gem and weare not putting a larger burden on the taxpayers of Bristol.Councilman Fuller ChairmanCouncilman CockayneCouncilman Carlson  Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com