Sale of Foss Creek School near completion

The Healdsburg Unified School District and the City of Healdsburg move forward with the city’s plan to purchase HUSD’s Foss Creek Campus, which has become surplus property for HUSD. The Foss Creek School was vacated seven years ago due to declining student population and has been leased to the city for six years since then.
“There were a number of issues…one was the school district was having some financial challenges,” said assistant city manager David Mickaelian, of the city’s decision to lease. “The city wanted to work with them to help them out, so we came up with the lease.”
At the Nov. 19 school board meeting, the signing of the final agreement was changed to a report item on the meeting agenda and no action was taken. “The attorneys hadn’t quite finished it,” said HUSD superintendent Jeff Harding. “I’ll bring it back at our December meeting, where we’ll be asked to approve it.”
In spite of the delay, Mickaelian insisted that the completion of the deal is not far off.
“I will be taking this to our city council on December 2nd, and I hope to get some support then,” he said. “This is a creative way of getting the community what it needs. We want to make sure there are additional resources for children, to ensure some of these programs we’re seeing will be there for the long haul.”
Since its leasing of the campus, the city has put the Foss Creek campus to good use, according to superintendent Harding, with programs and services especially beneficial to the City’s youth. “The City has done a tremendous job taking advantage of that school site,” he said. “They offer classes, a teen health clinic, the garden is going, it’s hustle and bustle all the time. It is a resource for the community…certainly much better than the empty building we gave to them.”
“I would like to thank you for the purposes you put our school to,” added board member Judy Velasquez. “The city stepped up and took over a very sad situation, and it was done superbly. I’ve also gone through the teen clinic and it’s pretty impressive. It definitely fits in with our caring for our kids.”
Mickaelian estimates the purchase price of Foss Creek School at around $5 million, although after calculating pre-paid lease fees and other considerations, at the end of the year the cash consideration is right around $3 million, he said. “With the lease we didn’t have access to the entire site,” said Mickaelian, who states the purchase will help the center better serve the community. “We’re getting bigger and bigger, and as we’re wanting to make changes to the facility, it’s getting more difficult to do that. We had an opportunity to purchase and it became more logical for us to simply own it.”
When board member Donna del Rey asked if Mickaelian expected any surprises at the Dec. 2 city council meeting, he said, “I don’t foresee any. Assuming the council approves this on the 2nd, we’ll come back to council on the 16th for final approval.”