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06/12/2023 08:03 AMThe town has received three responses to a request for proposal (RFP) concerning redeveloping the Pierson School property. The responses will be vetted and presented to the Town Council at a future date.
Earlier this year, the town sent out an RFP to gauge interest in redeveloping the old middle school property in the heart of Clinton.
“After reviewing a number of potential types of development, the Council preferred that the site be used for senior housing. There was also interest in exploring a public/private partnership that would keep Pierson as part of the civic life of the community,” Town Manager Karl Kilduff explained about the RFP last year.
At a Town Council meeting on June 7, Kilduff told the Council that the town had received three proposals. Kilduff said the proposals would be vetted “at a staff level” first and then presented to the Council at a future date. When the proposals are presented to the Council, Kilduff said he will also go through the next steps of the process.
The Pierson School has been empty now for almost exactly four years. In 2018, the town’s Board of Education voted to close the school at the end of the 2019 school year after it had been open for 80 years. A facility-needs study conducted by the school system found that closing the school was prudent in the face of declining enrollment and rising operational costs.
Though there is still a way to go before anything concrete happens with the property, the Town Council has continued discussing the building. An engineering study was conducted on the vacant building to help determine its condition and the feasible potential reuses. The town held one public feedback session in the fall of 2022 to listen to what members of the community thought about the future of the building. Following that meeting, Town Council Chairman Chris Aniskovich said another public feedback session would be held in the future.
During a presentation last August, 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 responses will help inform the Council of any potential developer interest in the property.
“Responses to an RFP would tell us if there is developer interest, if it is feasible, and what role the Town would have to pay to have such space provided,” Kilduff said in 2022.
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 educational interests of the residents.
Since 2019, the town has pursued 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.
Four years later the action is still ongoing. 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 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.