Local development firm Mar Ventures Tuesday night was awarded the lease for the Redondo Beach Unified School District’s site at Knob Hill, contingent upon negotiations for final lease terms.
Mar Ventures, which submitted a bid to build an affordable housing complex, was selected as the next highest responsible bidder after the school district was unable to come to terms with its first selection, the financially strapped proposed Christian academy, Ambassador High School.
The school board voted unanimously to enter into negotiations with Mar Ventures. Several neighborhood residents, including the Knob Hill Community Group, staunchly opposed the Mar Ventures proposal and asked the board to reconsider Ambassador or another potential school bidder, Pacific Lutheran High School.
But school board member Arlene Staich said that the uncertainty surrounding such potential bidders, coupled with the uncertain status of the state education budget, left the district little choice. Although Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget does not include further cuts to K-12 education, Staich noted, it is reliant on the passage of a ballot measure this spring.
“We need the money now,” Staich said. “…And we cannot take any more ifs. We have been cut quite a bit — $8.8 million, something like that. We are down to bare bones here and it’s children that are our future. We must protect them and make the best education possible. We can’t wait for what the state is going to do.”
The Mar Ventures proposal would provide the district $502,027 annually in rent. Nearby residents have argued that the proposal – which would build as many as 100 units of “workforce” moderate income housing at the 3.25-acre former school site – would change the character of the largely single-family neighborhood.
It isn’t a certainty that Mar Ventures will again pursue its bid. Mar Ventures president Allan Mackenzie, in an interview Wednesday, said that no decision has been made by the company yet regarding Knob Hill. The company had been in a holding pattern while it waited on the school board’s decision.
“We don’t really have a definitive idea of what we want to do,” Mackenzie said. “We’ll be putting our thinking caps on to see if we want to move forward on some basis.”
The school board in November passed over the Mar Ventures bid in favor of Ambassador High, but negotiations broke down when Ambassador could not meet the district’s financial requirements. Ambassador’s offer did not meet the full $528,000 in annual proposed rent until the fifth year of its 30 to 40 year proposed lease.
Kelly Martin, the leader of the Knob Hill Community Group, argued before the school board Tuesday night that Mar Ventures’ proposal did not offer the district financial certainty because it would require a change in zoning that would be broadly opposed by the community. She questioned whether the proposal would be meet the affordable housing requirements exempting the project from a citywide public vote, triggered by city charter provisions implemented by Measure DD two years ago.
“We will do our due diligence to see if it even qualifies,” Martin said. “…Those [reasons] alone make it very risky for you to vote it in.”
Martin also argued that the district had essentially priced out all public agencies – including the city, which recently announced it would move its Knob Hill Community Center from the facility – by seeking over $1 million annually in lease revenue and only last year dropping the lease price to a minimum of $500,000.
“We aren’t able to get agencies in here because it’s just frankly too expensive,” Martin said.
Board member Todd Loewenstein said that the district was going by professional real estate appraisals, as was their fiduciary responsibility, and noted that the passage of DD had negatively impacted the property’s value and caused the district to lower its asking price.
“Many of you are homeowners here,” he said. “You wouldn’t go out and say, ‘My house is worth a million and I’m going to ask for $100,000….’ We would be pilloried.”
Loewenstein also said that the district had offered the city a longer lease than its current month-to-month lease at Knob Hill. The city currently pays $302,000 annually, an amount that includes a $115,000 sublease with Carden Dominion school.
“We have actually tried to get them to sign a long term lease because we knew, whatever happens, it will take a while….Crickets – we didn’t’ hear anything,” he said. “So now we are where we are at…We find ourselves with $115,000 in rent for a property that five years ago was appraised at $1.2 million.”
“We did not kick them out,” Staich said. “They chose to leave.”
Several residents asked that the site be preserved as a possible school site. Resident Brian Carrico noted that it would be a loss to the community to have viable school site gone forever.
“Here we have Ambassador High, and Pacific Lutheran High, and they are interested in it,” Carrico said. “I would encourage you to step back a little bit.”
Pacific Lutheran Principal Lucas Fitzgerald said that the site would be a vast upgrade over his school’s current site in Torrance and asked to considered. The school did not submit a bid in previous requests for proposals.
“I’d love to have a crack at the site if the community is interested in a school,” he said.
Resident Sandy Pringle, who is also a school inspector, said the facility would not meet newer state requirements for a school. He noted that Ambassador had estimated it would cost in excess of $10 million to upgrade the site as a high school.
“It is a really great idea to have that as a school,” Pringle said. “But I’m telling you, that site is condemnable…The truth is that is a nice site to do something nice with, but we don’t have the funds to build a school there.”
One resident in the audience accused the school board of ruining his neighborhood with “low income” housing.
“It seems to me you are all about money, and not what our community is going to look like 10 years from now, when you guys are not here and you’ve ruined our community,” the man said.
“I’ll be here 35 or 40 years,” Loewenstein responded. “I have the same concerns that you do, sir.”
Board member Carl Clark questioned the man and his assumptions about workplace housing. He noted that moderate income housing is community specific – adjusted to median incomes – and is intended to provide housing for people such as teachers, other school district workers and even city employees.
“Are you telling me you don’t want those people to live here?” Clark said. ER
