The San Diego Unified School District Board agreed Tuesday to move forward with using $18 million in Proposition Z funds to try and buy a more than 54,000 square-foot office building in Kearny Mesa.
The plan is to turn the building on Ruffin Road near Clairemont Mesa Boulevard into Innovations Academy's new permanent home.
The school has been operating at a temporary campus on Scripps Poway Parkway since 2011, but the district voted in June to tear down the school and lease the land to a development company which plans to build a luxury apartment complex.
The district expects a return of more than $40 million over the next 66 years.
“I’m really excited because we need a permanent facility that is ours,” said Innovations Academy Director Christine Kuglen.
Kuglen is looking forward to turning the Kearny Mesa office building into a 20-classroom home for her growing school of more than 400 students.
“Being able to build out this facility to our philosophy will allow us to create space and do the projects and develop socially and emotionally the way our program is designed, she said.
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District critic Sally Smith didn’t share Kuglen’s excitement.
“This is the biggest taxpayers scam that the five school board members have come up with yet,” Smith said.
Though critics of the plan have called the purchase of property a misuse of Proposition Z funds, district officials say the funds can be used to acquire land and facilitate the growth and expansion of charter schools.
Board President Kevin Beiser was the only no vote, adding “If this were to fail, then maybe we'd be compelled to keep the school where it is now instead of dislocating the school and all those hundreds of students and trying to spend all this time and energy finding a new home when they have a home now where they’re being evicted from.”
The Monarch project, a development of 242 luxury apartments and 22 affordable housing units, is slated to replace Innovations Academy.
“This is a joint occupancy project that will generate revenue for the district that we will put back into the classrooms," said Lee Dulgeroff, Chief of Facilities Planning and Construction for the district.
Dulgeroff estimates the district will spend another $5 million on renovations at the new site. The district is hoping to close on the deal in the next few months and move in during the fall of 2019.
Voters approved Proposition Z in 2012. The measure asked voters to authorize $2.8 billion in bond sales to be used to improve the district’s aging facilities.
