City College readies to rent DeAvila School building (Sept. 2006)

By Andrea Wolf & Annie Gaus

As early as January 2007, a portion of City College’s soon-to-be-renovated John Adams campus will move, temporarily, to the DeAvila school building at 1351 Haight St. The elementary school was eliminated in a round of school closures following the 2004-2005 school year. Last academic year, Aim High Academy, a school for underprivileged, homeless and “at-risk” sixth graders that was partly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, occupied the DeAvila building, but has since moved to another location.

According to Gentle Blythe, director of the office of public information for San Francisco Unified School District, City College has been granted an 18-month permit to move into DeAvila. City College will be ready to begin the move in October, with classes starting there by January. The district intends to lease the DeAvila building to City College through the 2007-2008 school year.

In May, City College first presented plans to move into the DeAvila building while its John Adams Campus––located at Masonic and Fulton––undergoes a much-needed retrofit and renovation. The college plans to maintain the historic facade of the campus (originally Lowell High), but will shut down about two-thirds of the facility to upgrade seismic, electric and plumbing features––much of which has not been upgraded since the building was built in 1911.

Previously, City College had hoped to temporarily move into the Newcomer High School building in Pacific Heights, but the plan was rejected after a neighborhood group howled about potential traffic and parking problems. Additional plans for occupying Laguna Hills High School also fell through.
“If we didn’t have DeAvila I don’t know what we would do,” said Linda Squires Grohe, dean of City College’s John Adams campus.

According to Grohe, the parking issue is minimal since over 70 percent of students who attend the John Adams campus take public transportation. City College also plans on keeping the parking lots north of the Panhandle open to students.

Although no formal contract between City College and the school board has been signed, the DeAvila move is widely expected to happen. “The administration met with [the Haight Ashbury Improvement Association] and got favorable results,” said Joe Kelleher, Management Assistant for the John Adams campus. Kelleher says now it’s just a matter of working out the finer details of the contract, such as who will be responsible for managing and maintaining the building City College’s stay.

Calvin Welch, co-founder and land use chair of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, said he is unaware of any opposition to the City College move. “We had a conversation with City College and they are very mindful of the traffic system,” Welch said. “There are far worse uses other than education that DeAvila could be used for, so we really don’t have any problem with it.”

Neighbors should expect a formal letter from City College chancellor Phillip Day during the beginning of October detailing the terms of the lease.