City offers land parcel to Red Sox; Mayor proposes new school
According to Banker & Tradesman:
A plan to move a Boston performing arts high school from the Fenway to the Theatre District could give the Red Sox a chance to expand their real estate holdings around Fenway Park.
Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino wants to build a new Boston Arts Academy on a city-owned parking lot wedged between the Doubletree Hotel and the Tufts Medical Center at Tremont and Washington streets. If approved, the city would sell the high school now located at 176 Ipswich St., behind Fenway Park, and put the proceeds toward the new $100 million school. The 157,146-square-foot Fenway building is assessed at $13.2 million.
That the city would consider selling a highly-coveted piece of land to the Red Sox sounds enterprising.
However, building another school from the ground-up seems ill-advised. As has been reported in the press, Boston public schools have excess capacity – several schools are, at best, half-full.
Wouldn’t it make more sense (and be more cost-effective) to just put those 404 children into another facility, instead of spending millions of dollars on a new school?
Sox Have Eyes On Another Fenway Parcel – By Thomas Grillo, Banker & Tradesman