BCC and the Alms House
Broome Community College has long been under pressure to determine a use for the idle and deteriorating Alms House located along Front Street. The College needs to finalize the decision by the end of January, 2009, as it is under a requirement from the NYS Office of Fire Prevention and Control to identify a suitable use for the facility or a plan for demolition. On two previous occasions the Alms House has been evaluated to determine whether or not it would qualify for the historic registry. My understanding is that the building failed to meet the requirements for such a designation.
Over the last eight months, BCC has invited groups to submit full and complete proposals regarding potential uses. While there have been several expressions of interest, no proposal has addressed fully the issues of how such renovations and usages could be funded not only immediately but throughout the future as well. The College also has explored its own potential uses of the facility and generally has found that long-term funding and other issues prevent the College from using the facility to enhance the educational mission of the College. During Spring, 2008, the Board of Trustees expressed its desire that the facility be demolished, however during the past several months there have been in the community various suggestions made about the potential use of the Alms House. But with all of the suggestions about usage, there are perhaps two fundamental reasons why the College should no longer maintain the Alms House on the BCC campus and at this point should demolish the facility.
The first of these reasons involves the extremely high cost of renovation at a time when State and National finances are being squeezed in a way that has not been seen for many years. BCC officials are extremely grateful for the hard work of individuals such as Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, County Executive Barbara Fiala, State Senator Thomas Libous, and others to generate ideas or even secure in previous New York State budgets funding that could contribute toward a restoration of the Alms House. However, the funding already secured does not cover the entire cost of renovation and in fact may not even account for 40-50% of the total restoration and operational maintenance costs for the years ahead.
If renovation of the facility were to be completed it would have to come with additional funds, perhaps from local public or private sources that would in fact compete with other critical capital projects that are at the heart of BCC’s educational mission as a community college. BCC currently has facilities that are approaching 50 years of age and are highly in need of renovation. One recent capital project that has been proposed, a $22 million science-technology-classroom facility to be funded with half SUNY Construction funds and half Broome County funding, will represent a start toward these badly needed renovations. In addition, the State funding portion of this capital project is not among the operational funding items that Governor Paterson has recommended reducing for subsequent budget years. Further, the proposed new building is consistent with the College’s Master Facilities Plan and would clearly serve an educational purpose.
It is important to keep in mind that the pleas of those who would prefer a restoration of the Alms House are coming at a time when all public entities – and private entities, individuals, and families as well — are experiencing real financial pain if not financial exigency. Governor Paterson recently proposed mid-year budget cuts that would not only substantially but devastatingly have affected BCC’s State funding, and the likelihood is that the Governor’s budget proposal for the State’s next fiscal year will include substantial higher education funding reductions. Certainly all public entities should and must be willing to share in the “across the board” sacrifice needed to address NYS’s financial crisis. But some have proposed that the College, either by undertaking its own use of the Alms House or by identifying another entity that could use the facility, could fund the cost of renovation and upkeep through fundraising and donations to the College Foundation. However, those efforts would erode the primary mission of the BCC Foundation. It is not the mission of the College Foundation to raise funds principally for a facility whose purpose goes well beyond the educational mission of the College and in fact might affect the Foundation’s ability to raise needed scholarship money for students or funds for equipment and other capital projects.
There is another fundamental reason why from the College’s standpoint it may be best to demolish the Alms House at this time. Land on which the Alms House building is located – and indeed throughout much of the front of the Campus — may be needed for other College uses. The Alms facility is located on land owned by Broome County (technically, the owner of all College grounds and facilities) and which, according to NYS law and statutes which define the responsibilities of sponsoring counties and their local community colleges, is entrusted to BCC only for the purpose of furthering BCC’s educational mission and functioning.
Recently the College has been working with a private developer to explore the eventual construction of student dormitories either to be located on land adjoining the campus or on-campus. It appears that considerable local opposition of neighbors and perhaps even the Town of Dickinson Planning, Zoning and/or Town Board may ultimately weaken or even prevent the developer from constructing dormitories on the Boland land, the privately owned site adjacent to the College which was originally preferred by the BCC Board of Trustees. The development of student dormitory-style housing – to be funded through private and not public sources — is a critical step for BCC. For many prospective students and their parents, the presence of attractive and suitable dormitories is a major contributing factor when students identify their college of choice. BCC dormitory housing, to best serve the student, needs to be in extremely close proximity to or on the grounds of the Campus and its activity; a downtown “extension” location in this instance would not suffice. Because BCC is a relatively “landlocked” college, if it turns out that the Boland land is not feasible for student housing, the College will be forced to identify a location on campus, and one possible location is along Front Street where the Alms House itself is located.
At the meeting of December 11, 2008, the BCC Board of Trustees approved a resolution to demolish the Alms House. While a timeframe in which to complete the demolition has yet to be defined, the College Administration will now finalize a plan for the eventual demolition and will commence the initial design stages of such a plan even before January 31, 2009. To the extent possible, salvageable materials will be retained in order that at an appropriate time in the future a suitable memorial to the facility can be constructed or incorporated into another capital project on the BCC campus.
Personally, and where practical, I myself also generally favor historic preservation and renovation. To prefer otherwise would normally and generally seem wasteful of resources. But when the cost of such renovation — particularly in an economic climate where funding resources are so strained — is so high given the return value, and when other perhaps more badly needed projects are in danger of being scrapped because of cost, renovation purely for the sake of preservation on the BCC grounds comes at a price that is no longer affordable nor pragmatic.
(This post was originally submitted to the Press-Sun Bulletin. However, it was not printed due to their recent editorial.)
Daniel T. Hayes, Ph.D.
Interim President
Broome Community College
