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CVSD considers central office move to Williston Brady: ‘A hard thing to justify’ BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Champlain Valley School District administrators are looking to more than double the size of their workspace with a central office move from Shelburne to Hurricane Lane in Williston. Some school board members, however, are questioning the need and cost. First-year Chief Operating Officer Gary Marckres and Facilities Director Chris Giard have pinpointed a vacant office building at 312 Hurricane Lane as the best option for a new central office. They say it’s the only office space within the district’s five towns — Shelburne, Charlotte, Hinesburg, St. George and Williston — that has enough An office building on Hurricane Lane is under consideration by the school board to be the new central office of the square-footage at an affordable cost- Champlain Valley School District. The building is neighbors on the street — located just south of Exit 12 — with two hotels and several businesses, and near where the Vermont State Police is currently building a new barracks. per-square-foot. The district’s central office has OBSERVER PHOTO BY JASON STARR been located in a 7,900-square-foot office in Shelburne for the past 20 lease would cost the district an addi- a new lease in November, to begin an existing list of needs, including years — the majority of that time as tional $188,000 annually, more than renovations in December and to for more classroom space at Allen the Chittenden South school district doubling the expense from the cur- move into Williston in the spring. Brook School in Williston. before a 2016 merger created the rent $115,000 to $303,000. An addi- The district’s current central office “There are lots of competing Champlain Valley School District. tional $100,000 would be needed to lease in Shelburne has expired. needs,” she said “I would love everyAccording to Superintendent Rene reconfigure and prepare the space, “This is a good time for us to be one to have a lot of space. I just don’t Sanchez, central office staff has in- Marckres said. looking rather than when we have a know if that is reasonable.” creased from 15 to 37 people since “This building is pretty much lease in place,” Sanchez said. Marckres, the first-year COO, it first moved in. In an Oct. 18 pre- ready to go,” Giard said. “We were The school board formed a sub- said more work is needed to figure sentation to the board, Sanchez de- kind of lucky to find something that committee of board members and out how the district would pay the scribed the space as “too cramped to already had offices in place. We’re administrators last week to assess more-than-doubled annual lease carry out the work efficiently.” not having to do a lot of buildout.” the need and cost of the move. Board cost. The Williston building has Central office administrators member Lynne Jaunich was skepti“I would be concerned if we had 17,000 square feet available. The hope for school board approval of cal of both. She said the district has $187,000 sitting around that isn’t be-
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ing used,” Jaunich said. “I’d like to know where that money is going to come from.” Jaunich is also concerned at the quick timeline administrators presented for the board to approve a new lease. “I don’t like feeling pressured, especially if we don’t know if we have the money to do this,” she said. Board member Erin Brady has similar concerns. “The timeline feels ambitious to make a commitment of that size,” she said. She anticipates residents in the district will question spending taxpayer money on administrative space. “If we haven’t addressed classroom space at Allen Brook, but we are able to double administrative space, that feels like a hard thing to justify as a board member,” Brady said. Williston board member Josilyn Adams suggested that some Allen Brook staff could use the new building, which is only a mile away, to free up space at the school. She supports the administrators’ proposal. “We are growing,” Adams said. “We are adding positions that are needed, and we need to make sure the people we’re hiring have a good work environment.” Board chair Angela Arsenault also expressed support for the expansion. “The (new) space really affords room to grow, not just in the literal sense, but in a more metaphorical sense … with spaces that might become community spaces.”
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