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10/25/2022 02:20 PMThe Town Council has taken a step forward in determining the future of the Pierson School, setting a public hearing for Thursday, Nov. 17 at 6 p.m.
The Town has been working to find a new use for the vacant Pierson School property at 75 East Main Street for three years. And while there have been no decisions on the property’s future, the Town Council agreed at its Oct. 19 meeting to send the topic to a public hearing to gather community input.
Additionally, at a workshop related to Pierson on Oct. 13, the Council agreed to send out a Request for Proposal (RFP) asking developers to submit ideas on “senior housing with the option of selling or leasing the building and the town having use of a portion of the bottom floor for a senior center,” according to minutes from the workshop.
“The Council did not vote,” said Town Manager Karl Kilduff. “To clarify, there was a consensus among the Council that re-purposing Pierson for senior housing would make the most sense. The Council came to that conclusion after talking through a range of potential uses of the former school.”
“Request for Development Proposals would have to be issued seeking developers, and approaches to the property which would have to be evaluated. The RFP stage would come following public comment,” Kilduff added.
The Pierson School, which sits right in the heart of town, has been empty for more than three years after having been used as a school for 80 years. 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.
Though there is still a ways to go before anything concrete happens with the property, the Town Council has copntinued discussing the building. Last winter, an engineering study was conducted on the vacant building to help determine its condition and what potential reuses would be feasible.
In July, the Council asked Town Manager Karl Kilduff to gather cost estimates for potential new uses and to schedule a workshop for Aug. 25. That workshop produced no definite plans but did shed light on some of the issues the Town will have to weigh as a new use is decided.
During the presentation on Aug. 25, Kilduff said the Town essentially has three decisions to make when it comes to the property: retain the property for town use, lease some building space to potential tenants and retain some space for town use, or sell the property entirely.
The RFP would held inform the Council of any potential developer interest in the property.
“Some of the Council felt a partnership might be possible between the Town and a developer that would provide for housing and making part of the school available for a community use. However, it was understood that the RFP process would help determine the feasibility of that approach,” explained Kilduff.
“The RFP would also tell us how much space could be subject to a partnership, so it should not be viewed as the whole floor. Responses to an RFP would tell us if there is developer interest, if it is feasible, and what role the Town would have to play to have such space provided.”
Kilduff and Town Council Chairman Chris Aniskovich have both emphasized that no decisions about the property have been made and that there is still a long way to go before anything happens with the property.
“A great deal of additional work needs to be done. The public needs to be consulted and have the opportunity to provide their input. The Town is at the very start of a process. Some of that process involves information gathering from the developer community for a project concept that makes sense for the site and the community,” said Kilduff.
Part of the reason that it’s important for the town to do its due diligence on the property is that whatever the town decides to do will have ramification for decades to come, a point Aniskovich has made clear.
“This is the most difficult decision people in this town will have for many years. Whatever happens to that property will have an effect for 50 years at least. It’s not as simple a process as I think some people think it is. There’s a lot of decisions to make and more questions we need to ask. Once we make a decision on what to do that’s it, there’s no redo,” Aniskovich told the Harbor News last month.
Of course, that has not stopped residents from sharing their thoughts over the years. The lack of a dedicated senior center or community center has been something residents have frequently spoken about, and some have suggested that the Pierson property could solve that problem. That would require the town retaining possession of the building and a substantial financial investment from the town.
Compounding the search for a new use for the property is the question of the deed of the building. When the Morgan Fund Trustees sold the property to the town in 1953, a deed on the property from the sale stated that the premises must always be used for the education interests of the residents.
Since 2019, the town has been pursuing ongoing legal action, officially called a cy pres, which would lift the deed restriction. The town found out about the deed restriction after the board of education decided to close the school in 2018, but then-first selectman Christine Goupil estimated the cy pres action wouldn’t take longer than 18 months. More than three years later, the action is still going on. In March of 2022 the Town Council unanimously agreed to a resolution that would pay the Morgan trust $75,670 to help remove the deed restriction.
The Connecticut Attorney General ’s Office needs to approve the payment, but Kilduff said earlier in 2022 since both the town and the trust are in agreement of the exchange it’s hopeful the state won’t object but there is no timetable for an end to the process at this time.