By Walter Elliott
NEWARK – The Newark Public Schools may be learning that it is harder and costlier to buy back the school buildings it had sold off.
That lesson is being learned here at 15 State St. – the former State Street School – and at 33-47 Maple Ave. – the former Maple Avenue Elementary School.
The 1845 core State Street School building and its 1882 addition last held classes in 1973 but has historic significance. It was the “Colored School for Children” from 1869 to until its principal, James M. Baxter, began a desegregation campaign in 1873.
Baxter, who also started a night school among its eight classrooms here, managed to get one of his graduates to attend Newark High School (now Barringer HS), then at Washington and Linden streets, in 1873. He kept pressing for district-wide desegregation until his July 1, 1909 retirement; he died that December.
“Mr. Baxter’s School” building made the national and state historic registers in 2019 and the three-story brick structure had received a new roof about four years earlier.
The district had meanwhile, lodged its Arts Department headquarters there in the 1990s. It became a repository for the NPS Historic Preservation Committee 2011-18.
State Street School, however, was one of 13 properties the state-operated district sold off in Feb. 22, 2016, to balance its 2016-17 school year budget. NPS conveyed their deeds, for $1 each, to the Newark Housing Authority, who then sought buyers.
The NHA found a buyer in the Hanini Group ‘s 15 State Street LLC, which paid $650,000 for it in 2019.
Hanini found a tenant with the Newark Boys Chorus, who was looking to move from its decades-long home at 1018 Broad St., for its own school (Their building to Symphony Hall’s north is the site of a 2019-approved five-story, 111-housing unit Symphony Flats building.)
A contractor for Hanini started clearing State Street School’s interior for renovation – when its workers boarded it up and departed in 2020.
Two outside legal firms hired by NPS took Hanini and NHA to State Superior Court-Newark that April. NPS wanted to take back the property – and cited a clause in its 2016 conveyance contract that it can do so.
There was a change in NPS leadership with the state returning local autonomy to the district 2018-20. Christopher Cerf became the last State District Superintendent, who was eventually succeeded by NPS Superintendent Roger Leon in May 2018.
Leon was looking to reclaim what of the 13 school buildings that were conveyed or sold. He was also negotiating leases with owners of non-NPS school buildings and even the former St. James Hospital to open more specialized magnet high schools.
NPS would honor the Newark Boys Chorus School’s pending lease. The district would also bring back the Historic Committee with an eye on opening a museum.
NPS, Hanini, NHA and their respective lawyers remain in litigation over the State Street School as of press time. One of the district’s legal firms – Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti – notified the court and the parties Sept. 22 that it had withdrawn from this case.
Riker Danzig and remaining firm Sattiraju & Tharney have meanwhile racked up over $435,000 in billed hours as of Oct. 1 – for a building that was sold for $650,000.
Passers-by of 15 State St, including riders at NJTransit’s Broad Street Station, see an inactive State Street School. Russo Development’s Vermella Broad Street, a five-story, 295 apartment unit complex, is going up behind it. The Newark Boys Chorus is holding classes in NPS’ Marion Bolden Student Center.
While time stands still for the State Street School, the KIPP: SEEK Academy’s 500 Kindergarten-Fourth Grade students and 60 teachers and staff have been holding classes at 33-47 Maple Ave. for over one-and-a-half school years.
The building SEEK Academy is in was the 1924-2015 Maple Avenue Elementary School. That school, whose once growing population had spread to a former Hebrew school at 200 Lyons Ave. in the 1970s, was down to 265 K-Eighth Grade students in 2014-15.
MAS was closed July 1, 2015 as part of the One Newark plan. The NHA sold the building to Hanini’s 33 Maple Urban Renewal LLC for $1.2 million Dec. 28, 2017.
Hanini had reportedly invested $10 million in removing asbestos and converting the 31 classrooms into apartments – until it sold the project March 19, 2020 to the Friends of TEAM Academy Charter School for $10 million. Friends of TEAM is a fundraising foundation for KIPP-NJ, who then had 11 charter schools in Newark.
FOT was looking to move the KIPP Seek Academy School from the third floor of 100 Aldine Ave. It had been leasing the top floor of the otherwise George Washington Carver – Bruce Street School building from NPS since 2011.
NPS, through Sattiraju & Tharney, then took the NHA, Hanini and FOT to court in May 2020. The district, more than citing its conveyance “right to return” clause, claimed that Hanini violated another clause by selling the building to another school. NHA is being sued for ‘a lack of transparency” in finding buyers.
The district, as of Oct. 1, had paid $850,000 in legal fees to Sattiraju & Tharney. FOT has paid $200,000 for its legal fees. The NHA has paid its lawyers $233,000 through June 30.
The Maple Avenue School experience may have a second sting to it. First, the One Newark Plan had tended to close and/or consolidate schools in the South Ward. Second, it reminded some of how the NPS Eighteenth Avenue School became the KIPP: Bold & Thrice Academy through a third party.
NPS sold 229 18th Ave. in 2013 to Pink Hula Hoop LLC for $4.3 million. Pink Hula Hoop’s partners included those with connections to KIPP and financiers.
Pink Hula Hoop turned over the property to FOT – who then turned its operations over to KIPP. FOT tends to be KIPP-NJ Team Academy property holder for the latter – until Sept. 25, 2020.
FOT, on Sept. 25, 2020, sold the now-Bold & Thrive Academy property to KIPP: Team for $1. The building and land’s value were last assessed at $12.2 million.
FOT, in a report, said that it had invested another $10 million in renovating the Maple Avenue building.
NPS has so far spent an overall $1.285 million on two buildings that the NHA has sold for $1.85 million.
The district has bought back the former Morton Street School / West Side High School Ninth Grade Success Academy building, from the NHA June 17, 2022 for $10. It had sold the 114-year-old building and land to NHA June 30, 2016 for $1.
Most of the other 10 school buildings conveyed to the NHA have been sold. Four of them – Maple Avenue School Annex, Bergen Street School / Brown Arts Academy, Warren Street/American History High school and Benjamin Banneker Science Center – have been demolished for other construction.
The Roseville Avenue School is being converted to apartments. The Burnet Street and Clinton Avenue Elementary schools have been used by charter schools.
Newark could have taken a lesson from the Glen Ridge Public Schools’ Central Elementary School experience.
GRPS kept the 1926 building opened until diminishing student enrollment prompted its closure in the 1980s and sold it to the then-Howard Savings Bank. “The Howard” sold 180 Hillside Ave. to First Fidelity Bank June 18, 1993 for $1.38 million.
The school district, citing resurging enrollment, bought the building back from Wells Fargo Bank in 2017. The $5.1 million purchase price was raised though a bond issue.
The school district, after evicting an orthodontist and making renovations, reopened the Central School, Labor Day 2019.
East Orange’s School District has meanwhile kept two of its long-closed school buildings.
The Vernon L. Davey Middle School was renamed after Cicely L. Tyson in 1995. The 1930 building was closed after The Tyson School had moved to its K-12 Grade complex in 2009.
The Washington Elementary School, on Sanford Street, has been vacant in recent decades.
