This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
12/22/2023 03:09 PMAt a meeting on Dec. 20, the Town Council unanimously voted to recommend the former Pierson School property be sold to developers HOPE Partnership Inc. and Xenolith Partners LLC for $500,000. The developers have proposed turning the former school into affordable housing with an eye toward senior citizens and space for senior programming needs.
The council entered into executive session at its Dec. 20 meeting to discuss a real estate matter. After nearly an hour, the council exited the session and announced the proposed plan. The action will need to be officially approved at a town meeting, which has not yet been scheduled.
The council also voted to refer the matter to the Planning and Zoning Commission for review. Per state law, the Town Council needs to make a referral to the Planning and Zoning Commission for their report on whether or not a possible real estate action complies with the Town’s Plan of Conservation and Development. By statute, the commission has 30 days to make its report.
The Developers
According to its website, HOPE Partnership was founded in 2003 and “is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing affordable workforce housing opportunities in Middlesex County and along the shoreline.”
Tony Lyons, the president of the organization’s board, said that the partnership has had an interest in Pierson for a number of years.
“This is a great day; it will deliver a lot for the town,” Lyons said after the council meeting.
Lyons said the plan is for HOPE Partnership and Xenolith Partners LLC, a New York-based affordable housing development company, to form a joint LLC that will own the building.
Lyons said that the proposed affordable housing to be offered on the property would be with a preference for seniors. Lyons said programming space for seniors would be managed by the Estuary, an Old Saybrook-based non-profit that serves senior citizens in the area.
Though the proposal calls for the building to be sold, the façade of the building would be preserved, as would the gazebo and statues on the lawn in front of the school.
“The public has had a cry for senior housing and not to demolish the school. Our plan is to address those concerns and satisfy the townspeople by preserving a really important landmark,” said David Carswell, a board member with HOPE partnership.
Though the recommendation has been made by the council, it will still be a while before anything happens with the property. Assuming the Planning and Zoning Commission approves of the proposal and it passes at a town meeting, Lyons said the developers would need to go to the state for financing, which could take years.
Years in the Making
Finding a new use for the Pierson school has been a task five years in the making.
In November 2018, Clinton’s Board of Education voted to close the Pierson school at the end of the 2019 school year after 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. The school housed the district’s fourth and fifth graders at the time and had been open for 80 years.
Following the closure of the school, a new wrinkle was discovered: the deed of the property. 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 been pursuing ongoing legal action, officially called a cy pres, which would lift the deed restriction. Town officials learned about the deed restriction after the BOE 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, nor would the school be vacant for long. Five years later, the cy-pres is still going on, and the school is vacant. 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 since both the Town and the trust are in agreement on the exchange, it’s hopeful the state won’t object.
Lyons referred questions about the deed status to Town Manager Karl Kilduff, who did not respond to questions in time for this article. Town Council chairperson Carrie Allen also could not be reached in time for this article.
Since the school closed, there has been much speculation and debate about what should happen with the property. The Town Council had regularly discussed Pierson over the last two years, but much of the discussion took place in executive session, meaning there was little that could be publicly stated until now.
Over the years, the Town has hosted public workshops, conducted an engineering study, and held a public feedback session related to the future use of the school. The Town put out a Request for Proposal earlier in 2023 to gauge interest in redeveloping the property, which received three responses. The Town Council then spent the next few months evaluating the proposals until publicly announcing its recommendation at the meeting on the Dec 20.