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Hartford School Officials Propose New Site For Performing Arts High School – Hartford Courant

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Hartford has a $ 33 million budget for purchasing and renovating a building for Kinsella’s high school grades, a long-awaited expansion of the performing arts magnet school approved through the state’s Sheff v. O’Neill desegregation agreement.

But after investigating more than a dozen properties, the school system faced a June 30 deadline to identify a site or risk losing the state construction grant that will largely fund the project, board Chairman Richard Wareing said.

School administrators sought a building with up to 95,000 square feet, an auditorium for 600 people and ample classroom space for 400 students. The eight-story building at 275 Windsor, a longtime educational center for working professionals, including engineers from the region’s top corporations, sits on about 13 acres just east of Capital Preparatory Magnet School and north of the minor league stadium under construction.

Last December, as part of the ballpark development, the city bought a 2-acre, $ 1.78 million swath of land on Windsor Street from Rensselaer Hartford Graduate Center Inc.

Narvaez said the school system was still in negotiations with Rensselaer for 275 Windsor. The New York-based Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute issued a statement Wednesday, saying it "has received a proposal from the City of Hartford Board of Education regarding property at 275 Windsor Street. Rensselaer has not yet had sufficient time to complete a comprehensive review of the proposal."

The city council would have to approve any building acquisition, Narvaez said, and there is no firm timetable when the Kinsella high school might move to Windsor Street. The school’s grades nine to 11 have been housed temporarily at 245 Locust St., tucked into an industrial area in the South End, with 12th grade being added in the coming academic year.

Kinsella’s prekindergarten to grade 8 campus is south of downtown and within steps of Colt Park. For years, Kinsella supporters argued for building the high school in the same Sheldon-Charter Oak neighborhood, as a close extension of the tight-knit elementary and middle school grades.

In early 2014, a group of parents opposed a district recommendation to build the high school on city-owned land next to SAND School on Main Street, not far from the Rensselaer site now under consideration.

But with the state’s deadline looming, a Kinsella teacher, several parents and student body president Tiana Concepcion urged the board Tuesday night to endorse the Windsor Street property, citing the cramped space on Locust Street and a need for resolution. The proposed location is also a half-mile walk from downtown’s Hartford Stage, a draw for teenagers interested in theater.

Up to 95 percent of the $ 33 million project is reimbursable with state money, according to the district.

Concepcion, 17, who will be entering her senior year, said she "got tired of searching. … It’s close to Hartford Stage and what we need for the school."


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