Horizon to move students to former grocery
By NOLAN ROSENKRANS
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Horizon Science Academy will move its high school students to a new West Toledo location next fall -- several years after leaders started planning for the change.
High school grades will move from their downtown Toledo site to a former grocery store in DeVeaux Village, at Sylvania Avenue and Douglas Road. The sale of the site, which was part of the former Seaway Food Town chain, was closed last week, said Pete Shawaker, a commercial real estate agent with CB Richard Ellis/Reichle Klein, who handled the deal.
The building arrangement is somewhat convoluted. The property was purchased for $1.425 million by OG-Ohio LLC, a limited liability company for New Plan Learning, a nonprofit company affiliated with Concept Schools, a charter school management company that runs Horizon, along with other Ohio and Illinois charter schools.
The site is zoned for regional commercial use, but the Toledo City Council approved a special-use permit last year after planning staff recommended the 58,000-square-foot building be used for the school.
Mr. Shawaker said the property at 2600 West Sylvania Ave. was under contract with New Plan Learning for about nine months, but the company needed to issue bonds before the Toledo purchase -- and others the company is conducting for Concept Schools -- could be finalized.
"It took awhile to get those bonds sold," Mr. Shawaker said. "That's why it dragged on so long."
Horizon Science Academy-Toledo currently rents space at the Secor Building, 425 Jefferson Ave., for third through 12th grades.
Murat Efe, superintendent for Concept School's North Ohio division, said Horizon schools' elementary school grades will remain at their Springfield and downtown Toledo locations.
Renovations for the Sylvania Avenue property have been budgeted at $3.7 million, according to Murat Arabaci, president of New Plan Learning and formerly of Concept Schools. The school will eventually have 30 classrooms, a gymnasium, a football field, a career center, cafeteria, and laboratories. It will be retrofitted for 630 students, Mr. Arabaci said.
Concept Schools officials originally had hoped to move students into the building by the start of the 2010-2011 school year, Mr. Arabaci had said last year. Students now are expected to move at the beginning of next school year.
Horizon will lease the building from OG-Ohio for 30 years, starting at about $500,000 in the first year, Mr. Arabaci said, increasing eventually to about $736,000 a year.
Horizon's Toledo school enrolled about 270 high school students and 100 elementary school students last year; the high school was rated in continuous improvement, the equivalent of a "C" grade, though the elementary school was rated in academic watch, a "D" grade.
Signs advertising the school have been up for months on the ground floor of the Nicholas Building at Huron and Madison streets, though Mr. Efe said there is no plan to move any of Horizon's operations into the building.
He said Concept was looking for a new site for its elementary grades last year and may have considered the location at the time, but will remain at the Secor building.
Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at: nrosenkrans@theblade.com or 419-724-6086.
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