Converting the closed schools

Even as grieving students and teachers in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia hold out hope that appeals will spare at least some of the 49 schools targeted for closing in June, the far-less-emotional evaluation of what's next for this sizable stock of institutional facilities is already under way.

Where the archdiocesan family sees the impending death of beloved alma maters, the development community sees opportunity.

It is simply the practical reality of moving on, as evidenced by every former estate or farm that is now a housing subdivision, shopping center, or office park.

In this case, the focus is 45 elementary schools and four high schools in Philadelphia and surrounding counties, a diverse assemblage of aged buildings whose continued use in the fiscally and enrollment-challenged Catholic schools system is not sustainable, a blue-ribbon commission has found.

Not that their future use is an obvious proposition.

"This does not lend itself to a cookie-cutter solution," said prolific urban redeveloper Carl Dranoff. "Each site and each school has its unique characteristics."

In interviews over the last few days, designers and other participants in the region's building environment spoke of the easiest answer for any shuttered school: making it another school.

They also offered more challenging and creative repurposing ideas, including retirement housing, luxury condominiums, day-care centers, artist studios, business incubators, and offices for nonprofits. Some even suggested starting over - as in bulldozing what exists and building anew, depending on location, parcel size, and parking availability.

"From a real estate opportunity, it's a mixed bag," Bart Blatstein, the man behind the renaissance of Philadelphia's Northern Liberties neighborhood, said of the current portfolio of Catholic school properties at issue. But it's a bag he has deemed worth looking into.

"I have interest in some sites," Blatstein said, declining to name any because, he predicted, chuckling, "the price will go up."

Dranoff, whose recent urban-revitalization emphasis in Philadelphia has been on South Broad Street, is interested, too, but he also isn't saying which properties intrigue him. His vast portfolio already includes two Philadelphia schools converted to apartment complexes: the former Pennsylvania School for the Blind at 36th Street and Lancaster Avenue, and the Roberts Quay Building at 10th and Clinton Streets, a onetime Pennsylvania Hospital academic building.

Transforming schools is not easy, Dranoff said. Though classrooms with high ceilings and plentiful windows are attractive for housing retrofits, figuring out uses for auditoriums and gymnasiums is "very difficult."

Because of its size, the 44-acre Monsignor Bonner/Archbishop Prendergast complex in Drexel Hill could be considered a suitable site for a mixed-use development of housing, offices, and institutions, Dranoff said. But that still leaves the gym issue.

"I think a lot of imagination is going to be required," he said.

Last week, some suggested the Bonner/Prendergast property would be a natural fit for Crozer-Keystone's landlocked Delaware County Memorial Hospital nearby.

The archdiocese insisted that speculating about new lives for any of the schools on the elimination list is "really premature" and not part of any current considerations or negotiations by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, who just opened the appeals process.

"Nothing will begin to happen to these properties for months," said spokeswoman Donna Farrell. "None" of the closing decisions "was driven by real estate and property values," she added.

Information was not readily available on how much building square footage, land, and property value the tax-exempt schools represent, Farrell said.

The schools would join other archdiocesan property whose future is uncertain. Sources have told The Inquirer that Chaput, who was installed in September as the archdiocese's new leader, has decided to sell the 16-room stone mansion off City Avenue in Philadelphia that has been the residence of Roman Catholic archbishops for 76 years. The three-story dwelling of nearly 13,000 square feet sits on 8.7 acres.

The schools recommended for closing range in age from a few dozen years to more than 100, said developer J. Brian O'Neill, head of O'Neill Properties Group L.P. in King of Prussia. He is advising the archdiocese on the schools issue, from communications to eventual property disposition. Consequently, he said, it would be a conflict of interest for him to pursue any school put up for sale.

One holds particular appeal to him - Our Lady of Lourdes in Overbrook, which O'Neill and his siblings attended. While "disappointed" that this school is on the closing list, "it is what it is," O'Neill said.

At the commercial real estate firm CBRE Inc., executive vice president Robert Fahey, a product of the Catholic schools system, said selling specialized property was tough.

Among the schools he has sold recently is the 30-acre Episcopal Academy campus in Devon. It took two to three years to find a buyer, Fahey said.

"There's a real limited audience for all that stuff," he said. And price "is only relevant when you have demand." For instance, dropping the price for West Catholic High won't help woo a buyer "if there's no logical reuse," Fahey said.

He and other real estate professionals said no accurate property values could be determined for the schools until appraisers have gotten to walk the halls of each and until the archdiocese, which owns the high schools, and the local parishes, which own the elementary schools, have learned of their reuse potential.

"I think it could be some time before the dust settles and these various entities can figure out what they can do next," said James Scott, senior vice president at Colliers International in Philadelphia. The company has handled real estate deals for a number of the region's religious institutions, including the $3.5 million sale in September of Northeast Catholic High School for Boys to Mariana Bracetti Academy Charter School.

Scott said he had heard nothing from the archdiocese regarding whether Colliers would get all or any of the brokerage work when final decisions had been made on which schools would close and be offered for sale.

Binswanger real estate company in Philadelphia has also offered its help to the archdiocese, said John Binswanger, the firm's chairman. He said he believed the work would go to more than one broker. The complexity of finding buyers for the properties, particularly the 21 schools in the city, will be "compounded" by planned closings of public schools, he noted.

The School District of Philadelphia recently disclosed that it was considering shuttering nine of its learning centers in the next two years, and likely more after that.

Prospects for all those properties showing up on a market already challenged with empty offices, storefronts, and commercial strips worry Karin Morris, manager of smart growth at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

With an economy still uninviting to development, Morris said, "what's going to happen over the next five to 10 years with these properties? Are they going to sit vacant? Who's going to maintain them? It's a bit scary."

A school in her own Passyunk Square neighborhood, Annunciation B.V.M. on Wharton Street between 11th and 12th, is slated for shutdown.

On the other hand, Morris said, when the economy recovers - which could be by the time the schools actually are offered for sale - the properties could represent welcome development opportunities, especially in neighborhoods with little or no buildable land.

As a commercial real estate lawyer at Fox Rothschild L.L.P. in Philadelphia, Bill Martin has a professional perspective on the decisions now before the archdiocese and parish officials - not to mention those who buy any of their schools.

He noted the challenges of retrofitting buildings constructed before the requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act, the sparse parking at most elementary-school sites, and the possible use limitations on the buildings because of their zoning.

But he also has an emotional view of school closings as a 1975 graduate of St. James Catholic High in Chester, which shut in 1993 and became an assisted-living/nursing facility.

"It really takes a piece of your heart," Martin said. "In some ways, you feel like you're losing the relationships. The contacts are never quite the same once the school's closed."

For more coverage of the proposed closing of Catholic schools in the region, including pictures of some

of the buildings, go to www.philly.com/schools

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