News

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Surplus Facilities Committee recommendations

The board established a surplus facilities advisory committee in 2008 to study the feasibility of moving the district office and rental of the district site, feasibility of rental of the Ortega Street site, and feasibility of rental of the Parma School site. Following a series of meetings, the committee presented the board with final recommendations, as noted below:

“Now that more is known about enrollment trends, downtown office vacancy rates, class size reduction and other relevant factors, the committee is recommending the board hold off on moving the district office to Santa Barbara Junior High School at this time. Our recommendation is based primarily on these considerations:

• Enrollment seems to be holding steady (although the elementary district’s change to basic aid may change that in the future).
• Classrooms freed up due to class size reduction are mostly being used by programs that were in leased portables and by other new and modified programs. These classrooms are scattered throughout the two districts, which makes it difficult to move other programs to a campus.
• The status of special education and Cesar Chavez may affect facilities and is unknown at this time.
• Most importantly, the real estate market for leasable office space is still very soft (about 8.3 percent vacancy) so we are concerned that if very limited district funds were spent to relocate the District office and uses currently at SBJHS, there may not be companies interested in leasing the office space at 720 Santa Barbara Street.

It is the committee’s opinion that several parameters would have to be met before the move should be considered:

• Downtown office vacancy of 3 to 5 percent; and
• Careful analysis to determine that the SBJHS program wouldn't be adversely affected by moving the District office to the east wing, including providing adequate meeting room space for the District office and SBJHS and no traveling teachers; and
• Virtually no leased portables in the districts (currently there are 5 in elementary district including 3 at Cesar Chavez and 2 at Peabody).

If these parameters are met sometime in the next year or two, we suggest the current committee members be asked to reconvene (along with others as needed to meet the Education Code requirements), then report to the board again when conditions are more favorable for the move.” To see the complete report, go to: http://www.sbsdk12.org/board/attachments/2010/01-26/01-26-10_attachment_F.3.pdf