An agreement to purchase property at Charter Square shopping center for a fourth elementary school in Foster City was finalized Thursday, a culmination of years of effort by San Mateo-Foster City Elementary District officials.
The district agreed to pay $61 million for the land as well as a new school building to be constructed by Westlake Realty, owner of the property on Shell Boulevard just north of the Beach Park Boulevard intersection.
The deal announced Thursday, Nov. 3, brings an end to the tireless pursuit by district officials to purchase the site for construction of the school financed with funds generated by the Measure X bond.
School board President Ed Coady expressed his excitement for a deal to finally be struck.
“This has been a thorny situation for a long time,” he said. “I’m just thrilled we were able to pull it off, and bring all parties together on this.”
District officials identified the site serving as home to restaurants, a grocery store, day care center and other small retailers at least five years ago as a potential place to build a new school necessary to ease overcrowding at Foster City campuses.
The district’s push for the land ramped up amidst the campaign for Measure P, the facilities bond shot down by voters in 2013. Following an exhaustive public outreach campaign in the leadup to rallying support for Measure X, officials maintained their belief the shopping center would be the ideal location for the new school.
Superintendent Joan Rosas shared her appreciation to finalize the acquisition in a prepared statement.
“We are very pleased with this outcome and firmly believe that strong schools are important for our community,” she said. “We are proud of and appreciate the generous support of our community and are excited to move on to the next stage of planning and engagement for the design of the new school.”
The project has been especially contentious recently, as Foster City officials publicly expressed skepticism regarding the capacity of the school district to acquire the site, or the interest of the property owner to sell the land.
The two sides entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement last year, but the window closed before a deal could be struck, inviting questions regarding whether the proposed acquisition would ever come to fruition.
Foster City Mayor Herb Perez had been one of the most vocal skeptics of the feasibility of the deal, pointing toward the property owner’s previous interest to build housing at the site as a primary source of his doubt.
But in the wake of the deal being announced, Perez said he was happy to have been proven wrong.
“I’m willing to eat my share of crow on this one, because there is nothing to say,” he said. “I raised my issues hoping I was wrong, and I was wrong. I’ll take the hit on this one.”
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Perez said he was a proponent for Measure X in hopes of using a portion of the funds to build the school space necessary to accommodate enrollment growth in Foster City.
But his suspicion regarding the viability of the deal grew so severe in recent weeks Perez called for separation of the district, and favored Foster City establishing its own school system.
In the wake of the purchase being announced, Perez said many of his concerns are ameliorated, but noted there are many steps ahead for the district to complete the project.
“There are a number of issues that still have to be worked out,” he said. “But we understood that when we voted for the bond.”
Coady acknowledged potential hurdles too, such as the threat of cost overruns on a tight budget which would force officials to reconfigure their approach to building the school.
“Unfortunately, if there are challenges in the process we will have to scale back what we are building,” he said.
Moving ahead, the district is set to host a variety of community outreach meetings in the coming weeks to discuss the proposal to build at the site. The first meeting is set for Wednesday, Nov. 16, at Audubon Elementary School in Foster City.
Bob Cushman, a Foster City resident who opposed previous proposals to build housing at the shopping center, said in an email he supported the new school.
“Thankfully, the elementary school district was able to successfully negotiate a purchase agreement. Use of that land for a school is vastly more important than building more houses there,” he said.
He noted though he wished the property owner and city officials could have collaborated to revitalize the shopping center, but favored the school use well ahead of more high-density housing.
As the process moves ahead, Coady said he hopes building a fourth elementary school will work to bring the community together and move away from the conflict which has clouded conversations about the project in the past.
“I hope this is a moment in time that really bring people together and drops some of the divisiveness,” he said.
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