School District Finalizes Lease For 103 Central Building

$25.

That’s how much it will cost the Glenwood Community School District to secure its future on the former Glenwood Resource Center campus.

On Friday, the GCSD signed a 25-year lease – at the cost of $1 per year – with the Glenwood Redevelopment Corporation to remain in the 103 Central building. The agreement seemingly clears the final hurdle for the district to begin more than $4 million in renovations to the building that will house its central office, Kids Place Daycare and its THRIVE and APEX programs.

The signed deal puts a bow on months of sometimes intense negotiations between the district’s legal team and representatives from the redevelopment corporation, the non-profit group tasked with overseeing the redevelopment of approximately 200 acres on the 1,100-acre campus. The remaining 900 acres is designated as a state preserve.

Glenwood Superintendent Nicole Kooiker said she was relieved and excited the lease is finalized and the project is moving forward.

“There are multiple entities with multiple focuses trying to make sure that we’re doing all the right things for this long-term agreement,” Kooiker said. “It’s been a lot of work and a lot of collaboration but we are finally moving forward.”

The biggest issues that needed ironing out between the two parties, Kooiker said, revolved around “time and money.”

The language and length of the lease and the lingering financial questions of the costs associated with maintenance, insurance and access for the 103 Central building and grounds used by the district were all on the table.

That did present a challenge, Kooiker said, in discussions about “who is paying for what” on a campus that could undergo significant changes over the life of the lease.

The school district and Glen Haven Village, a cottage-style nursing home facility located on the northeast edge of the campus, are the remaining tenants on the property. The state officially shuttered the GRC on July 1, 2024.

“A lot of it was who takes care of what and what are the common areas and who pays for that,” Kooiker said. “This isn’t just about a building. It’s playgrounds and parking lots and bus lanes and access to the spaces we need.”

Road and landscape maintenance, such as snow removal and mowing, in common areas will be a shared expense.

Insurance and the district’s permissible sublease contracts were also addressed in negotiations. The lease agreement stipulates as a tenant in the 103 building the district will be carrying coverage on both the interior as well as the exterior of the building and its adjacent spaces.

But the biggest sticking point that was presented and ultimately resolved was the inclusion of a “termination clause” in the lease, according to Kooiker.

The district is investing slightly more than $4 million to update and remodel the 93-year-old building for its current and future needs. More than half of that budget will go toward new plumbing, a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system, electrical work and general utilities and fiber optic work at the 103 building. The new HVAC system alone is estimated at $1.5 million for the 35,000- square-foot building.

The remaining budget will be used to renovate the four-story building that will house the childcare center on the building’s first two floors, the district’s central office on the third and its THRIVE and APEX programs on the fourth floor.

Kooiker wants to be certain the district is protecting its investment on the GRC campus and both parties are acting in good faith should the redevelopment corporation have second thoughts on a private developer take over the project down the road.

“We want to be there 25 years and yes, it’s only one dollar a year but we’re running utilities up here and we’re having to put in new HVAC, plumbing and electrical,” she said. “So, we wanted to make sure we can be up there long term and there weren’t termination clauses that would exit us out without us breaching the contract.”

Following discussions, Kooiker said she feels both sides got to a “great place” on the termination clause.

“We needed them to know we need to be able to be up there long term. If we do something to breach the contract or do some something we shouldn’t do then it’s totally understandable, but we need to be able to ensure, after spending that much money and taxpayer dollars on the facility, we can be there for multiple years. This is a long-term investment. We think this is going to be an asset to the hill and the redevelopment.”

With the signatures on the lease, the district is forging ahead.

Bids from Mecco-Henne have already come in, and pending approval of the board of education at the April 14 meeting, utilities work could begin by the end of the month, according to Kooiker.

“As soon as the ground is thawed, we want those utilities being run up here,” she said. “The water, the electrical and all those pieces need to be in so we can function when they shut down that power plant on June 30.”
Kooiker is in the process of updating the timeline, but the target remains to be back in the building by August. With the majority of the work being completed in the summer months the central offices will move to the middle school library and Kids Place will temporarily shift its serves to Northeast Elementary.

“Not everything will be done obviously,” Kooiker said of the August target date. “It’s a pretty tight timeline so we’ll be worried about it as we go but we do have a backup plan and we’ll be creative for how long we need to be at Northeast and a few other buildings for some extra time. But we’re getting this done.”