Portsmouth receives 3 proposals for vacant school building

PORTSMOUTH — The town has received three proposed plans for the future use of the former Coggeshall School building, including a joint proposal from the Common Fence Point Improvement Association (CFPIA) and the Newport County YMCA.

The town’s request for proposals (RFP) to seek a concessionaire to redevelop and operate the property at 321 East Main Road was issued in December, and the deadline for submissions was Jan. 30. 

The building has been vacant since July 1, when the Aquidneck Island Christian Academy closed its doors and ended its lease with the town. Now the town is seeking ideas on how to redevelop the property for future use, whether it be for more classrooms, office space, recreational opportunities or more.

According to Richard Talipsky, the town's director of business development, the proposals came from the following three applicants, all from the local area:

• Common Fence Point Improvement Association and the Newport County YMCA, 933 Anthony Road — CFPIA has been hosting its Zumba classes in the Coggeshall building on an interim basis while its community hall undergoes an extensive renovation project. President Conley Zani was listed on the application.

• Portsmouth Youth Activities Center, PO Box 654, Portsmouth — Mr. Talipsky said this is a newly formed entity. Duncan Ingraham, a broker at Century 21 Trend Realty and a former School Committee member, is listed on the application.

• The PLACE-Arts and Wellness Collaborative, 86 Seaconnet Boulevard, Portsmouth — Cynthia Fontaine is listed on the application.

Citing state solicitation rules, Mr. Talipsky said he could not comment on the specific nature of the proposals as they have not been fully evaluated.

The town will now convene an evaluation team to further scrutinize the proposals submitted against evaluation criteria, which include both a technical and financial evaluation, he said. Proposals will be scored out of a total of 100 points for each evaluation, Mr. Talipsky added.

Keeping the building occupied and maintained is more important than making a big profit for the town, Mr. Taplisky has previously said. 

"We don’t want the town to make a lot of money on this. We just want to make sure somebody’s in the building, taking care of it,” he said during an informal press tour of the building in October 2018.

Members of the public toured the building during an open house the following month.

The building was last occupied a little over seven months ago, when the Aquidneck Island Christian Academy, citing declining enrollment, closed its doors and ended its lease with the town. 

Since then, the town has been looking to redevelop the property for future use. Among the ideas floated: recreational activities, shared office space, classrooms and a community arts center.

The building is named after John Coggeshall, one of the town’s founders and a signer of the Portsmouth Compact. The original, south section of the building is dated to about 1924 but has been remodeled several times since. An addition with more classrooms and an all-purpose gymnasium was constructed in 1965.