Hope for New Haven’s Georgia Goldburn, with U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro in 2022: “For a small nonprofit like us, it’s a very contracted time to get a bid in.” Credit: Thomas Breen file photo Local organizations are racing against a 50-day clock to submit bids to the city to try to redevelop two former school buildings — both of which have sat empty since 2021. The former West Rock STREAM Academy at 311 Valley St. and the former Quinnipiac Real World STEM School at 460 Lexington Ave., also known as 805 Quinnipiac Ave., both closed during the Covid-19 pandemic due to severely outdated HVAC systems. Both properties have been officially “retired” by the Board of Education; both are now up for grabs from the city. As the Independent first reported last fall, the Elicker administration released separate requests for proposals (RFPs) for these two properties on Nov. 30. The city-issued RFPs seek out developers interested in repurposing the two vacant former school buildings that are now under city control. The RFPs give prospective respondents a deadline of Jan. 20 — or a total of 50 days — to submit their redevelopment plans for city consideration. Click here and here to access each RFP. City Economic Development Administrator Mike Piscitelli told the Independent that the 50-day timeline for these RFPs is not untypical. He said the city decided on that timeline with the holidays in mind, with the intention of giving “a little breathing room, given people are in and out of the office.” He said the city hosted a pre-bid webinar and other marketing before the RFPs were released. “It’s a little longer than we would typically do,” he said, while noting that the two former school buildings are “complex assets.” He concluded that the 50-day timeline is a fair amount of time because “the city is maintaining these buildings so we feel a little bit of the urgency with a vacant building to see if we can move it at a pace here.” While the city’s procurement portal does not identify any organizations that have submitted bids so far for these two ex-school buildings, it does list the names of dozens of groups that are “following” these RFPs to stay on top of latest developments. Some of the groups listed as “following” the former Quinnipiac school redevelopment RFP include All Nations Christian Academy, Becker and Becker, the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, Greater New Haven OIC, Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven, SLR International Corporation, The Glendower Group, and Upon This Rock Academy. Some of the groups listed as “following” the former West Rock school redevelopment RFP include Aspire Living and Learning, Greater New Haven OIC, Mattern Construction, Newman Architects, Svigals + Partners, The Glendower Group, and Vanasse Hangen Brustlin. In a September interview with the Independent, Mayor Justin Elicker said that his administration will prioritize finding a way to put these properties back to a productive use for the community and have them contribute to the city’s finances. The city will host walkthroughs of both buildings for interested parties this Wednesday, with the West Rock school site tour scheduled for 9:30 a.m. and the Quinnipiac school site tour scheduled for 11 a.m. Hope for New Haven Executive Director Georgia Goldburn said her nonprofit plans to submit its first-ever RFP bid, partnering with All Nations Christian Academy, to try to redevelop the former Quinnipiac school. Goldburn told the Independent in a Friday interview that her organization aims to repurpose the former Quinnipiac school building into a new home for three main uses: an expansion of Hope’s before- and after-school daycare services; a Christian-based children’s play museum; and a counseling center. “For a small nonprofit like us, it’s a very contracted time to get a bid in,” Goldburn said about the 50-day timeline. “The challenge now is racing against the clock.” This year Hope for New Haven is also working with All Nations Christian Academy to open a new workforce training lab called the Legacy Learning Lab to identify individuals interested in a training program to teach them about the business of running a childcare center. It will operate out of 392 Legion Ave. It will work with current and new business owners looking to get trained in parent relations, marketing and childcare contracts and systems to bring more businesses to New Haven. If Goldburn’s organization secures the Quinnipiac building, she said, all Hope for New Haven services would be moved there and Hope for New Haven’s current site at 81 Olive Street would become the home for eight newly trained and established childcare businesses to operate out of with support from Hope for New Haven’s upcoming incubator initiative. For the past five years, Hope for New Haven has been searching for a larger space to accommodate rising demand for childcare services. This year marked the first time the organization had to turn away families from its infant-toddler, school-age, and summer programs after its waitlist became “oversubscribed.” The new space would allow Hope for New Haven to add infant-toddler spots to its programing. It currently has eight self-contained classrooms and serves children from six weeks to 13 years old. Hope for New Haven has also been exploring ideas of establishing a school and therefore aim to connect with All Nations to make that happen. Currently, Hope for New Haven operates under a daycare license and a youth camp license for its services. “Now we are even having to turn away children from the families that are in our program because we’ve run out of space,” Goldburn said. With All Nations, which currently operates out of 358 Lenox St. and serves kindergarten through fourth graders, Hope for New Haven hopes to help the Christian elementary school to expand to serve middle schoolers through eighth grade. Some years ago, Goldburn added, her organization had to phase out its counseling center. It hopes to bring it back if it acquires the Quinnipiac space, which would also host a bible study group. She hopes the counseling center will help address the “epidemic of loneliness” many families she connects with are impacted by. The Covid pandemic, Goldburn said, still has “residual effects that are affecting children and families that feel disconnected and lonely. This may be a really good time to restore, in some measure, our counseling center.” Hope’s vision also includes a Christian play museum that’ll help with the constant concerns they hear that “there is not a lot for families to do in the city of New Haven.” She noted that families spend thousands of dollars in other towns for family-friendly programming including for summer camps and field trips. “There’s no play museum that’s focused around the Bible and so this would be the first of its kind,” she said. Hope for New Haven is relying on tapping into the state’s recent commitment to significantly increase investment in childcare, including through a new $300 million Early Childhood Education Endowment. Goldburn noted that there is a separate $80 million in funding specifically for childcare facility upgrades and construction that the state authorized alongside the endowment. “This would help us to position New Haven as a place where we can bring those grant funding to more children and families and the community,” Goldburn said. “We have a big vision of returning that building back to the community by bringing youth-centered experiences and opportunities as well as our wellness center,” Goldburn said about the former Quinnipiac school building, “creating a space for people to come and [seek] fellowship and get counseling.” On the other side of the city, Honda Smith — the alder for Ward 30’s West Rock/West Hills neighborhood and the executive director of the 333 Valley St. community center known as The Shack — said she plans to submit a bid for the former West Rock school building. She hopes to expand the current community center into the adjacent former school building in order to offer more services for New Haven youth and seniors. “We are a large community that doesn’t have much of anything, but we never turn anyone away, even at The Shack,” Smith said. She added that, since the school district closed Brennan-Rogers School last summer, her vision would be to bring back several of the services that were once provided to the community there — like a diaper bank, free food distributions, and youth programming. If the Shack were able to expand into the former West Rock school, she said, it could continue its work of “getting kids out the streets.” On Thanksgiving, the Shack fed 1,000 New Haveners hot meals, according to Smith. It serves youth who frequently visit for food and programming. “Everyone utilizes The Shack. We need more food to keep helping everyone out,” Smith concluded. While numbers can vary, Smith noted, the Shack serves dozens from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on a daily basis. Each week between 280-300 people visit the Shack. The post Deadline Draws Near For Ex-School Redev RFPs appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less