CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — Any preliminary negotiations on the future of the Coventry PEACE campus came to an abrupt halt in a special joint meeting called Tuesday (Oct. 8) with City Council and the Heights Library Board of Trustees.
As the owners of the campus, library trustees doubled down on their plans to wait out the findings of a feasibility study on the former Coventry school expected to be completed by the end of the year.
That study includes research on potential demolition costs, although Heights Library Director Nancy Levin also mentioned “mothballing” the vacant building once the dozen current nonprofit tenants are out.
Nine of those tenants missed the April 1 deadline to renew their leases for another 18 months with a modest increase.
This prompted the library board to continue current leases through the end of this year, then go month-to-month after that.
Things got off to a bumpy start during the 70-minute meeting when Heights Library Board President Vikas Turakhia took issue with Cleveland Heights City Council President Tony Cuda’s characterization of the situation.
The night before (Oct. 7), council unanimously passed a resolution of support Oct. 7 for “keeping the building a vibrant arts and cultural center,” as well as encouraging Heights Libraries to consider extending theleases of current tenants.
Cuda said at the joint meeting that council — along with University Heights officials — hoped to collaborate with the library “to ensure that the building transfers to a financially stable entity that can fulfill all of the current and future maintenance costs,” estimated at anywhere from $1.25 million to $2.8 million.
“That is not what we’re doing,” Turakhia said. “We are here to discuss financial stability with it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are looking to offload that building onto somebody.”
Turakhia also cited a philosophical difference on the current use of the public building by nonprofit but still private tenants.
“You have to be a member or be doing something with one of those organizations to go in there,” Turakhia said.
Cuda asked if there was a way that the current tenants — three of whom have newer leases that run through the end of 2025 — could agree to offer more public programming.
Library board secretary Patti Carlyle pointed out that only about four of the current dozen tenants could actually offer arts programming.
“Otherwise, we’re talking about (eight) small nonprofits” that don’t really qualify as arts-infused enterprises, Carlyle said.
This eventually led to a discussion of establishing a new arts hub in other vacant buildings around town and in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district.
Levin also cautioned against the “fast-and-loose” use of the “arts hub” term as it applies to Coventry PEACE campus.
She believes that the true arts hub in Cleveland Heights is Cain Park, rather than a 62,000 square foot building that is “big for its purpose and half-empty.”
As other examples, Levin pointed to Quirk and Shore cultural centers in Cuyahoga Falls and Euclid, respectively, funded through levies with staff offering classes and equipment for public use such as kilns and dark rooms.
In terms of continuing as the current PEACE building landlord, “it’s certainly too big of a load for the library,” Levin said. “But that does not mean that we’re looking to get rid of it either– it’s still our property.”
Since the library board took title to the building from the school district for a dollar in 2018, about $460,000 of General Fund money has been spent on improvements.
There has never been a plan offered to repay that investment, over and above the roughly $150,000 collected annually in rent from the tenants, who pay their own utilities, Heights Libraries fiscal officer Deborah Herrmann said.
“I said to you the other day that I don’t know if it’s time to have this meeting yet, and that’s what I meant,” Levin told council. “We are still in our process.”
Trustees feel that too much time has been spent over the years arguing with the tenants over nominal increases in below-market rent.
“I think the biggest thing for me personally as a library board member is a sustainable plan,” said library board vice president Annette M. Iwamoto. “Every 12 or 18 months or two years, it seems like we’re having similar discussions every time the lease term is up.
“I don’t want to keep passing this problem down to the next board.”
Iwamoto said she was “open to what sustainable solutions City Council might have for this,” as did Levin at one point, although she added that it still sounded like council was trying to tell the library board what to do.
“We didn’t ask them to miss the deadline for their leases,” Levin said, later mentioning that like the “‘Shark Tank” TV program, “we saw our chance to get out.”
As for the arts hub, “it’s a good idea — but not in this building and not with these people,” Levin said, adding later, “if they burned through the good will of the school board and the library board, what makes the city think it’s going to be any different with them?”
Levin said the library board’s biggest concern about the building involves a potential breakdown of the original heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system that could require substantial repairs if tenants are still inside.
“We also want to make sure the building doesn’t fall apart and ruin what is otherwise going to be an amazing park,” Turakhia said of the current rebuild and expansion — including the playground — that could be completed later this year.
Council reaction
In terms of next steps, Cuda said it looked like the library board already made a “hard and fast” decision on getting the current tenants out, “with no negotiating that — even with some help from the cities.”
Councilman Jim Petras, who drafted the resolution, pointed to the library board’s own community survey showing strong support for keeping the current campus intact.
Library board members themselves disputed those results, saying that the 1,471 responses — with 213 of those declared ineligible as non-residents of the two cities — did not accurately represent the larger community served.
Cuda also noted the strong turnout in support of the tenants at a July 24 community listening session, where library officials estimated about 120 in attendance, with about 25 people speaking, all in favor of preserving the campus.
Councilman Anthony Mattox Jr. agreed with the library board’s assessment that the arts-hub question needs to be separated from the issue of finances and that the larger community may not be responding at this point.
Councilman Jim Posch, who served as president of the CH-UH school board when the district turned the building over to the library six years ago, said there may be some leftover funds from the city’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.
Deanna Bremer Fisher, the former executive director of Future Heights, one of the nonprofit tenants in the building, now serves as executive assistant on special projects to University Heights Mayor Michael Dylan Brennan.
Attending the joint meeting on his behalf, Fisher questioned the need to “destroy” what she contends is more of an arts hub than anything else.
“This is something that was created organically by the community with folks who are residents of both cities, supported by the neighborhood,” including the nearby commercial district, Fisher said.
“It’s not something that’s easily re-created.”
Petras still believes that “virtually everything is negotiable, and it really comes down to whether we have the will to try to reserve it for this purpose.
“There are city resources if we are interested and willing to try to hash this out,” Petras added.
Tenants respond
In a statement released the next morning (Oct. 8) Coventry PEACE Campus Inc. accused the library board of “shifting the goalposts before ultimately stating their intention to clear the building of the current tenants and leave it empty for an undefined period.”
From there, it turned out that any effort to allow the tenants to remain in the building was a “non-starter,” tenants said.
ARTFUL studios followed up with a separate statement on Oct. 10, saying it became clear at the meeting that “library leadership had no genuine intention of working with the stakeholders.
“The library board arrived without a cohesive message, offering only vague research and a confusing statement about ‘philosophical differences’ that lacked clarity,” ARTFUL officials said.
In providing affordable space to artists from all walks of life and offering free and low-cost public programming and enrichment, ARTFUL further asked the community to show its support by attending “our last open studios in our beloved PEACE building,” from 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 25.
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