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"A word from Bellefield said... For years sugarplum visions of Reizenstein fetching vast sums at sale guided planning by Mr. Roosevelt and Dr. Lane's academic teams.
At one point, CORO fellows working under the direction of Derrick Lopez were peddling the idea that Reizenstein could fetch $40 million.
Even when faced with very detailed pro formas and example site plans of mixed use developments suggesting underlying value of less than $6 million, the Roosevelt/Lane/Fischetti/Weiss administration would not be deterred:
-Cate Reed was given the unequivocally clear mission to lead the IB site selection committee to choose Peabody;
-Irrational investments, such as the funds spent to move the robotics program to Peabody or monies used to split Reizenstein into two "schools" (temporary IB and last two classes of Schenley), were cavalierly discounted by some false hope that the sale of Reizenstein would make us forget them;
-The Dejong study favored Reizenstein over Peabody not because Reizenstein was a modern classic (the building's sins are well documented), but because it's one of PPS' only properties that is large enough to some day build a more modern middle/high school with adequate parking on pretty neutral turf.
When asked why Reizenstein was recommended over Peabody the deJong consultant responded only that Reizenstein is bigger, which made no sense. The consultant was actually looking beyond the current adminstration and planning for district needs into the future. Too bad, however, that despite claims to be working for the public rather than the administration, deJong was not straightforward about its recommendations. And that the district would spend half a million dollars and countless hours of time on a facilities consultant only to do what it had already planned on doing anyway.
2 comments:
On another post "A word from Bellefield" said:
"A word from Bellefield said...
For years sugarplum visions of Reizenstein fetching vast sums at sale guided planning by Mr. Roosevelt and Dr. Lane's academic teams.
At one point, CORO fellows working under the direction of Derrick Lopez were peddling the idea that Reizenstein could fetch $40 million.
Even when faced with very detailed pro formas and example site plans of mixed use developments suggesting underlying value of less than $6 million, the Roosevelt/Lane/Fischetti/Weiss administration would not be deterred:
-Cate Reed was given the unequivocally clear mission to lead the IB site selection committee to choose Peabody;
-Irrational investments, such as the funds spent to move the robotics program to Peabody or monies used to split Reizenstein into two "schools" (temporary IB and last two classes of Schenley), were cavalierly discounted by some false hope that the sale of Reizenstein would make us forget them;
-The Dejong study favored Reizenstein over Peabody not because Reizenstein was a modern classic (the building's sins are well documented), but because it's one of PPS' only properties that is large enough to some day build a more modern middle/high school with adequate parking on pretty neutral turf.
What a sad day for Pittsburgh."
So that explains the deJong recommendation!
When asked why Reizenstein was recommended over Peabody the deJong consultant responded only that Reizenstein is bigger, which made no sense. The consultant was actually looking beyond the current adminstration and planning for district needs into the future. Too bad, however, that despite claims to be working for the public rather than the administration, deJong was not straightforward about its recommendations. And that the district would spend half a million dollars and countless hours of time on a facilities consultant only to do what it had already planned on doing anyway.
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