The
historic Bevier Building could be the new home for some of the staff at the
Rochester school district’s central office.
Krestia
DeGeorge
In
1910, when the Mechanics Institute was looking for more space, there were no
statutes protecting historic buildings. That’s how the Rochester Institute of
Technology’s predecessor was able to tear down the final home of Nathaniel
Rochester to build the Bevier Building as a school of fine and applied arts.
Today,
as another educational institution’s search for space leads it to that
building, preservationists have more cause for celebration.
The
Rochester School Board voted unanimously last week to authorize the district to
negotiate leasing or buying the Bevier Building, next door to the district’s
administrative offices.
The
possibility of the district occupying the building, even as a tenant, thrills
Cynthia Howk, an architectural research coordinator with the Landmark Society.
“In
historic preservation you like to see that buildings are being used, paying
taxes, and being maintained,” she says. “Certainly we’re pleased to know that
the building is not going to sit empty.” The building has been vacant for the
past two or three years, according to Larry Glaser of Buckingham Properties,
its current owner. Buckingham bought the building just a few weeks ago.
“It’s
one of the few remaining public buildings designed by Claude Bragdon,” she
says. The Bevier Building, which displays the prominent local architect’s
trademark use of decorative tile and brick, made the National Register of
Historic Places in 1973 and was designated a city landmark the following year.
Though
district officials stress that no decision has been made about buying or
leasing the property, a move into the Bevier Building would be part of a
strategy to boost the district’s customer-service image. The district has begun
a “facilities modernization plan” for its school buildings, and Superintendent
Manuel Rivera says that administrative space is a parallel issue. Chief among
the concerns: making administrative areas “a more customer friendly, parent
friendly, citizen friendly place,” says Rivera. “Just as at City Hall people go
in for permits, for tax purposes, to visit the city clerk, this is very much a
public building.”
The
district needs space for special-education committee meetings, student
placement conferences, and offices for student work permits. And that space
shouldn’t reflect “a cold, foreign, bureaucratic institution,” says Rivera,
“but rather something that’s more welcoming.”
District
Spokesperson Barbara Jarzyniecki recalls one recent school placement session
where the acute lack of space was particularly memorable.
“We
had probably between 100 and 150 families downstairs in hallways sitting on the
floor,” she says. “It’s just — it was unfriendly.”
The
board’s vote last week lets the district look at its options. “This doesn’t
mean that we’re going to be leasing or buying the Bevier building,” says
Rivera. “It really — what it does is it gives us greater latitude to look at
different options for swing space while we look at renovating central office.”
The step isn’t
without its critics. Center for Governmental Research President and CEO Patricia
Malgieri says she mentioned the move to several community members who monitor
schools for her organization. “There’s general agreement,” she says, “that this
decision has got to be made in the context of the facilities modernization
plan,” which is currently underway.
“My
understanding was that they [the district] didn’t want to make any precipitous
judgments about the use of facilities in terms of expanding schools, renovating
schools, or closing schools until they had done the facilities plan overall. I
would think that this would be part of that same policy, which would be that
you want to make sure you’ve thought about the current use of all your current
facilities, including central office, before you figure out whether you need an
additional building.”
Malgieri
notes that once the district decides to close schools — as it inevitably
must, due to steadily shrinking enrollment — it could move central office
personnel into those buildings, rather than rent or purchase more real estate.
She says she’s surprised that given the state of the district’s finances,
district officials haven’t at least waited to see if former classrooms would
become available. Asked whether the district’s administrative staff wouldn’t be
more efficient located in the same area of the city, Malgieri points to the
district’s stated needs.
“Parents
might feel more welcome in a former school building in a neighborhood,” she
says. “I would put staff convenience low on the list.”
School district
officials note that the district’s capital improvement funds are separate
from operating costs and come mainly from the state, so money spent buying and
renovating the Bevier Building wouldn’t rob instruction funds.
“It
takes nothing away from what we would be able to maximize for our schools,”
says Rivera. To suggestions that they’re jumping the gun by not waiting until
the facilities modernization plan is out, district officials say that plans to
rent or buy the Bevier Building are in the five-year capital improvement plan
passed in 2000. City council passed the bond issue to pay for the move in 2001.
And
Rivera adds one more piece of information downplaying the significance of the
move: For 17 of the last 20 years, he says, the district has leased space in
the building for central-office staff.
This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2004.
