TPS board approves purchase of YMCA site
4/15/2014The Toledo Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved buying the YMCA/JCC of Greater Toledo’s North Summit Street building, with plans to move the district’s headquarters to the site.
The board voted at a special session to buy the YMCA’s office and fitness center on Summit for an estimated value of about $777,000, about $400,000 of which would be cash, and the rest through in-kind contributions.
Administrators and board members have considered a move of its central administration offices for months. TPS leaders plan to use the building as both an administrative center and for early-childhood programming. That early-childhood center is contingent on TPS winning Toledo’s Head Start grant funding.
Though the resolution passed Monday by board members said the district would move its central administration from its current home at the Thurgood Marshall building on Manhattan Boulevard to the YMCA building, board President Cecelia Adams said how the whole facility would be developed depended in large part on the Head Start grant.
“Those are things that have to be worked out,” Ms. Adams said.
The YMCA plans to maintain its office space under the proposed deal, and its fitness center would remain there for the near future.
As part of the deal, TPS would forgive rent for a YMCA-run daycare center at DeVeaux Elementary and a proposed daycare center at Byrnedale Elementary, and let the YMCA offices stay in the building rent-free for four years, among other elements of the agreement.
The deal between TPS and the YMCA nixes a previous agreement with Horizon Science Academy to buy the property for $830,000.
Mustafa Arslan, superintendent for Horizon in Toledo, said the charter school would respect the new deal and step aside.
Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at: nrosenkrans@theblade.com or 419-724-6086, or on Twitter @NolanRosenkrans.