The McCurdy School alumni nostalgic for the historic buildings spotting the campus can ease their minds. The buildings will not be demolished anytime soon. In fact, the Bachman, Blake, GALA and maintenance and laundry buildings will remain standing for an undefined amount of time.
In a Dec. 9 email, McCurdy Ministries and McCurdy School Property Inc. Board President Marilyn Peabody wrote, “Our construction is on hold.”
At this time, McCurdy Charter School is leasing the school building from McCurdy Ministries, which owns the building. The lease will expire at the end of June 2014.
When McCurdy School became McCurdy Charter School at the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year, one of the state requirements was the school buildings needed to be significantly improved. The most cost-effective way to do this was to demolish a few of the buildings and construct a new facility. The original deadline for this to happen was February 2014. However, the school was able to get an 18-month extension on their construction from the Public School Outlay Committee in October. The new deadline for the charter school to be operating in a new facility is August 2015.
As previously reported by the Rio Grande SUN, Highmark Construction was the company chosen by McCurdy Ministries to demolish the four buildings and construct the new one. McCurdy Ministries would maintain ownership of the land and take full financial responsibility of the new building. McCurdy Charter School would lease the building, as it is now doing with the current buildings. However, as of yet, no finalized contract has been signed by any party.
For three meetings – Oct. 15, Nov. 6 and Nov. 21 — the McCurdy Charter School governance board had items relating to the new building on their agenda: lease agreement between McCurdy School Property Inc. and McCurdy Charter School; reciprocal easement agreement between McCurdy School of Northern New Mexico, McCurdy School Property Inc. and McCurdy Charter School; subordination, non-disturbance and attornment agreement between Education Capital Solutions Inc., McCurdy School Property Inc. and McCurdy Charter School; and consideration of resolution authorizing facilities transaction with McCurdy School Property Inc.
During each of these meetings, the items were tabled. At the Dec. 4 meeting, the items were no longer listed on the agenda.
On a voicemail left Dec. 10, charter school Director Jannette Archuleta said she had no new information regarding the new building.
“We are still going through a review of all of the documents, so that is the status as of now,” she said.
McCurdy Charter School’s Board of Trustee president Deborah Anderson said on Dec. 10, “The building documents are going through one more round of review.”
“We’re cleaning up all the last pieces. I wish I could tell you how long it’s going to be, but I can’t,” Anderson said.
No demolition is expected to take place during the winter break.