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The Academy Conundrum

After a decade the Academy School still sits vacant in the center of town. After years of public hearings, studies, and committee reports, the town still has no easy path forward for the deteriorating school building. After the most recent Academy School public hearing on April 11, however, the town now has a clearer sense of what the public doesn’t want to see happen to the building, as well as a few new ideas.

The ideas are fragile and the details murky, but for the town, it’s a new place to start.

On April 11 the Board of Selectmen (BOS) held another public hearing to solicit input on the future of Academy School. Following swift and passionate backlash on social media and by various groups in town to the four development proposals put forward earlier this year that could see the entire five acres of the Academy parcel developed, the board opted to continue soliciting public input before making any decisions. At the public hearing, First Selectman Tom Banisch said the board has listened to the public and knows more options need to be put forward.

At a special BOS meeting on April 12, the board outlined and voted for a total of nine next steps to further the Academy School development process: 1) establish an ad-hoc academy building committee, 2) discover costs of building demolition only, 3) discover costs of demolition and building afresh a structure for town or community use, 4) develop preliminary costs of building rehabilitation for town or community use, 5) solicit proposals from the four responding developers for building-only proposals, 6) explore grant and public funding opportunities for any future use, 7) solicit opinion from historic stakeholders, 8) request the Board of Education provide a timeline for the return of Island Avenue School, and 9) take other steps necessary to be consistent with the objectives of the process.

The steps were derived from the latest public hearing where the board heard numerous ideas for the use of the building. Taking all of that into account, Selectman Bruce Wilson said the primary objective for the BOS should now be to find a solution for Academy School around which the community can come together.

“We have heard quite resoundingly actions that the community doesn’t want us to take and I think that we need to acknowledge that the community doesn’t want to see the fields go,” Wilson said. “It has just been too consistent and too loud for us to pretend that we can move forward with a solution like that…What we don’t have, and I think that is the work that is before us now as the facilitators of this conversation, is to help the community focus in on a solution that it can rally behind.”

The board hopes the next steps will help put some facts and numbers behind some of the ideas and then again try and whittle down the options. Selectman Scott Murphy said the board is trying to find the best solution.

“We are doing our darndest to listen to the public and do what is best for the public,” he said. “Are we going to satisfy everybody? Absolutely not.”

First Selectman Tom Banisch said he knows there is a lot of work to be done, but he hopes to put an Academy question on the November general election ballot because he said he is not sure if the school building can reasonably withstand another hard winter.

“I am pleased with the perception of people last night that they are being listened to,” he said. “I do think we have a long way to go to find the right answer, but I think there is a right answer.

“We have made progress,” he continued. “We are taking a step back and looking at where we are going to go and I think it’s our role to guide the process, but not to influence it.”

The Public Hearing

More than 300 people packed into Polson Middle School on April 11 to voice their opinions on the future of Academy School. More than 25 people of a range of ages stepped up to speak and brought some different ideas to light.

Prior to opening the floor, Banisch reviewed the recent history of the building and the development proposals (you can read more about both here. He said the town has a plan to possibly move the two fields at Academy up to Brown Middle School if the fields were to be lost and reviewed what a referendum question on Academy actually means.

“People think we are going to offer them three or four projects to chose from and then they won’t have a choice to reject anything,” he said. “That’s not what it is. The way we have determined this process was going to run from the beginning is we were going to go through the process of RFQ/RFP, boil it down to however many viable proposals came to us, and then the selectmen were going to chose the one proposal that we thought was best for the town and we were going to propose it at referendum. That may be the way this process still ends up, but the thing about the referendum is it’s a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ vote.”

Banisch said the town has listened to residents and is ready to solicit building-only development options for the school as well as other ideas like demolishing the building or keeping it for town use—something he said comes with a big price tag.

Comments from residents were spread across the board from turning the building into a community center to completely leveling the structure and turning the land into a park. Resident Kathryn Hunter, one of the organizers of the group Academy Save the Heart of Madison, said the group has generated more than 1,000 signatures in person and online calling to save the land and asking for a fair vote not solely focused on development.

“We don’t have consensus on the fix,” she said of the future of the building. “…In terms of moving forward, we really hope that the process is one that is a little more transparent, is one that involves public input and not just a working group that is not subject to any freedom of information [regulations], and one that actually explores options.”

Resident Diana Hartman said no matter what solution the town chooses, the town needs to work with someone who has money.

“If we could afford $12 or $14 million to rehab the building and use it, I would vote for that, but as best I know we don’t have that kind of money, so we need someone else to help us,” she said.

Resident and local developer William Plunkett, who had expressed interest in the building years prior, said his vision for the building still involves some level of mixed-use development, but the town needs to understand the costs.

“I think that realistically trying to keep it for just the town’s use is going to cost millions of dollars before you turn a light bulb on, let alone remediate any lead, put an elevator in, put handicap ramps in, fix the roof, and I have a laundry list of what it would cost to get this building fixed,” he said. “I would suggest that you keep an open mind and be realistic about what you can do with that property.”

Some residents called for the town to take the ball fields “completely off the menu” when it comes to development proposals, while others supported residential development proposals. In regard to the actual building, solutions ranged from community use to demolition to colorful alternatives.

Resident Dave Rackey called on the town to just “tear the damn thing down and put in grass and let somebody else in the future if they need it make the decision,” while others like Susannah Graedel asked the town to consider a community center as a possible reuse for the building.

“Many of you have probably been to the Guilford Community Center,” she said. “It’s a vibrant place. It has activities for all age groups, all interests, and it’s always full of children, teens, adults, seniors…One of the draws is the Community Center there in Guilford, so that is what I would like to see…I think we need a community center.”

Jack Davis, who has spent decades in town and founded The Grove School, said he was pleased to see so many people come out and engage in the conversation about Academy. While he said he didn’t prepare any comments, he listened to the crowd and then had a few thoughts to share.

“It’s very clear that you want to have the Hand name preserved,” he said. “That’s very clear. So let’s build a monument there to Hand. Let’s knock the building down. You have thought of all kinds of things; the only thing you haven’t thought of for the building is a mausoleum. We need space for people to die—the cemetery is getting full! So there is logic to what I am saying.

“It’s funny but it is true,” Davis continued. “We want to preserve the name, so let us build a monument to Daniel Hand. Why do we need this building? We are thinking of all kinds of bizarre uses for it. It’s a dead herring. I said it before, so why not eliminate it and make a monument to Daniel Hand with a little park there?”

With the crowd already laughing, Davis offered another idea: public restrooms.

“Why can’t we have a monument to Hand and a place for people to relieve themselves in the back?” he asked. “That’s the practical thing to do and it resolves the problem of trying to dig up ideas and the monies and all kinds of fantasies that are not leading us anywhere. Let us have closure. Let us come to realize the realities of what we are facing.”