The quasi-public real estate company MassDevelopment has handed the city a draft report with four possible uses for a vacant Fuller School. Tonight, representatives will present those plans to and field questions from the City Council and School Committee.
The organization's draft study proposes potential four uses:
A "big box" retail extension of Gloucester Crossing.
Commercial office space.
Commercial office space and a joint public safety facility to house the city's Police and Fire departments.
A community center with office space, a joint public safety facility, and facilities suitable to house an organization like the Cape Ann YMCA.
While Mayor Carolyn Kirk said her administration prefers the fourth option, at least one city councilor would like to put a municipal government complex at the former school back on the table.
"I have not given up on that," said Councilor Greg Verga.
Verga, along with Council President Jackie Hardy, put forward a proposed ballot question that would ask residents if they would like to move the city offices to Fuller School.
City Council decided not to move forward on the ballot question, but Mayor Carolyn Kirk's office will release a survey to residents about the building and other city facilities.
MassDevelopment didn't look at the municipal complex because the company doesn't do straight municipal development, Kirk said. In order for the company to look at a project there has to be some private component to it. The current site, Kirk added, exceeds by far what the city needs for office space.
"It far exceeds what we would ever need," she said.
In addition to City Hall, however, the city leases office space from the Cape Ann Transportation Authority.
The city can't do anything with Fuller though, until the School Committee declares the building surplus. The committee is conducting analyses of its own.
In terms of the studies, Kirk said Monday that the administration prefers the community center model to the other three designs.
For one thing, it's the only model that doesn't require demolition of the 175,000 square foot former parochial high school, and allows a fair number of uses. The other two would be difficult for the city to work out, Kirk said, and the retail project would either dilute Gloucester Crossing, or drain Main Street.
MassDevelopment's first option consists of two commercial office buildings on the site, with roughly 180,000 square feet of office space. For a project like that, or for the mixed office space and joint public safety facility plan, Kirk said the agency and city will have to consider whether they can fill that office space.
The second option is for 112,000 square feet of mixed box retail stores.
"The city would not undertake funding of options 1 and 2," said Kirk.
MassDevelopment's fourth option would re-use most of the Fuller School building, renovating it for both the use of a "Y"-like organization, and for offices.
One section of the old school would have to be torn down to fill the Y's need for a swimming pool, Kirk said, but that option keeps the Fuller Auditorium. It would provide 50,000 square feet of office space along the outside of the building.
Steven Fletcher may be contacted at 1-978-283-7000 x3455, or sfletcher@gloucestertimes.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevengdt.
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