UPPER WEST SIDE — The city and the owner of a West 61st Street school building have reached an agreement on a new lease for the school after at least 10 months of negotiations, City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal announced.
The negotiations for a 15-year lease for West End Secondary School (WESS), between West End and Amsterdam avenues, were so stalled that Rosenthal encouraged the city to use eminent domain to reclaim the building, a move that received support from Community Education Council 3.
After Beacon High School vacated the space and moved to a renovated building in Hell's Kitchen, the site became the new home of the sixth- through 12th-grade WESS, which opened to its first class of sixth-graders this fall.
But students moved into the school when the building only had a lease through 2020, leaving the future and necessary capital improvements in limbo.
The School Construction Authority said it would not begin the $40 to $50 million in improvements needed to make the building appropriate as a shared space for middle and high schoolers until a lease was signed.
A "handshake" agreement was made to extend the lease until 2035, meaning construction can begin this summer, Rosenthal said. The official papers will be signed in the coming weeks, she added.
Rosenthal called the agreement a "victory," noting she was serious in her threat to push the City Council to use eminent domain if necessary.
"It’s such a sigh of relief," she said.
Neither the landlord, Walter & Samuels Inc., nor the Department of Education immediately returned requests for comment.
