Price Not Right: School
Won’t Buy Ayers Center
By Sandy Vondrasek Cooch

After months of negotiations, the Randolph School District has dropped, at least for now, its quest to buy the Ayers Brook Center property, adjacent to Randolph Elementary School.

The RES board decided at its October 4 meeting not to pursue purchase, according to Board Chair Matt Poirier.

He said that representatives from the school and from Randolph Area Community Development Corp. (RACDC), owner of the property, were not able to agree on a price for the small parcel and building, which houses a number of social service and educational programs.

The Randolph School Board decided this spring to enter into negotiations, after RACDC indicated it was interested in selling the property.

Poirier noted that the district subsequently had the property appraised and the value came in "significantly less" than the town’s appraised value.

"Essentially, they wanted more than we were willing to pay," Poirier said. "It was cordial, but we couldn’t reach an agreement."

About half the space in the Ayers Brook Center is rented by the Orange Southwest Supervisory Union, as the site for its Early Essential Education program for at-risk preschoolers. The EEE programs shares a daycare space with CVCAC’s Headstart program.

Purchase seemed a sensible move for school officials, since the property is adjacent to the elementary school. Also, purchase would mean that OSSU would pay rent for its use of the EEE space to one of its member schools, instead of to RACDC.

In April, OSSU Supt. Brent Kay said that he believed the property could be purchased at no tax impact to voters. Money in the Randolph Elementary School’s building fund could be used for the purchase, and then rent from OSSU and other tenants would replenish the fund.

RACDC Executive Director Julie Iffland noted last spring that her board decided this might be a good time to sell the property, as RACDC shifts its focus to developing a sizeable housing project on the former Ethan Allen plant property—the Salisbury Square project.

Although interest was high on both sides, the difference in appraisals put school officials and RACDC "in a spot where we can’t move very much," board chair Poirier said. "It’s not a good time, I guess."

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