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10/19/2021 03:23 PMAt its Oct. 6 meeting, the Town Council approved an appropriation of $12,000 to be used for an engineering study that the town hopes will aid in finding a new use for the Pierson School.
The Pierson School, which has been vacant for almost 2 ½ years, has been a much-discussed development prospect. However, redeveloping the building is not a simple process like some hoped it would be because there are multiple hurdles the town must clear before anything can happen on the site.
Last month, Town Manager Karl Kilduff announced that the town would appropriate $12,000 from the contingency fund to pay for an engineering study on the site. The council officially approved move on Oct. 6.
Kilduff explained to the Harbor News how the study could help. He said that by understanding what changes—if any—could be made to the floor plan of the building, it will help the town make decisions about a future use.
“In short, can other floor plans work in the space or can the school only accommodate the existing walls [that] delineated classrooms? It would be important for the council to understand the extent to which the building could have alternate uses,” Kilduff said last month.
The work will be done by DTC, the town’s consulting engineer firm, and will take around 30 days from the start date to complete.
The council approved the appropriation by a vote of five in favor and one opposed. Democrat Christine Goupil objected to the move because she said she believes the $12,000 could be better used on figuring out other issues with the property and that a potential developer should be the one to pay for the study. The other council members vigorously disagreed.
Council member Carol Walter responded, “I believe...we spent a considerable amount of money on a [public meeting] a couple of years ago that gave us no information moving forward on the capabilities of the building. We need to know what the capacity of the structure is before we can even think about zoning,” said Walter. “This is money spent well in the right direction in my opinion.”
In 2019, when Walter was a member of the Board of Selectman and Goupil the first selectman, the town spent $7,500 on a public meeting where the public was surveyed on what kind of uses they wanted to see in the Pierson School. The selectmen unanimously approved that expense at the time.
By determining the capability of the building, Walter said that will help inform the town on what kind of uses are realistic and which can’t be done in the building.
“This is the icing on the knowledge cake as far as I’m concerned,” said Walter.
Finding out what potential physical changes can be made to the building is only one aspect that the town must undergo to find a new use for the former school.
The biggest issue with developing the property has to do with the deed of the building. The town actually owns only 37 percent of the school property, a percentage that doesn’t include the land under the building itself. The Morgan Fund Trustees own the rest. Furthermore, a deed on the property related on the sale of the building from the trustees of The Morgan Fund to the Town of Clinton in 1953 states that the premises must always be used for the education interests of the residents.
Since 2019, the town has been pursuing cy pres action on the property, which would lift the deed restriction. Cy pres is a legal concept that allows courts to interpret the language of trust or wills if the intended original wishes cannot be carried out.
In August, Kilduff said that the town and trust have been having conversations and that an end to the legal issue may be in sight.
“Karl has been working on that for an extended period of time,” said Town Council Chair Chris Aniskovich during the Oct. 6 meeting.
During the meeting, council member Eric Bergman mentioned that a number of Clinton citizens have reached out to the council concerned about what is happening at Pierson. Aniskovich mentioned he has heard these concerns as well as a perception from residents that the town has done nothing with the building, which Aniskovich said “could not be further from the truth.”
Aniskovich also pointed to a Sept. 30 Harbor News article “Clinton to Commission Engineering Study for Pierson Reuse” that he said incorrectly stated that the town had done nothing with the property. The article in part states “The Pierson School closed its doors at the end of 2019 and the town assumed control of the building the following fall. Some community members have been annoyed at what they perceive as a lack of action on the building. However, the council has had multiple discussions on the building during executive sessions.”
The Harbor News has provided numerous updates on the Pierson situation since its closure, though the information has at times been limited due to the lease discussions being conducted in executive session.
The Abraham Pierson School was an integral piece of Clinton’s educational life for more than 80 years and most recently housed the town’s 4th- and 5th graders. In 2018 the town’s Board of Education voted to close the school at the end of the 2019 school year. A facility needs study conducted by the school system found that closing the school was the prudent move in the face of declining enrollment and rising operational costs.
Since then, the building, which sits in the heart of Clinton’s downtown, has been a tantalizing opportunity for redevelopment that has inspired significant speculation from residents on what the future of the building could and should be. However, redeveloping the building has not been a simple task. It has now been close to 28 months and the process is still ongoing.
In 2019, the three prevailing ideas came out of the public meeting were: moving the Henry Carter Hull Library to the Pierson site, turning the building into a multi-generational and multi–use site, and using a portion of the building as a senior center.
The Town Council has repeatedly said that the public will have a role to play in finding a future use for the building.