By Jeff Clemetson | Editor

Magnolia Academy will stay at Cleveland site for one more year 

A compromise with developers was finalized at the June 8 meeting of the Navajo Community Planners, Inc. (NCPI) that will allow the Magnolia Science Academy to remain at the old Cleveland Elementary School site through the end of next school year.

“Giving them a whole other year is definitely impacting our plans for the project, but we’re willing to do that to give these guys a place to learn,” said Matt Hamilton, project manager for Preface JCR, the developers of the site. “I think we’ve reached a compromise and I think everyone is on board with it.”

Magnolia and Preface had reached a verbal compromise before the NCPI meeting, however administrators, parents and students voiced concerns that the development could still potentially disrupt the end of their school year if they had to leave early.

The verbal agreement was that the school would stay at its current site unless the new site became available, which could mean the school would have to stop midterm for packing and moving before resuming again.

“I do believe that if we had to leave during the school year that it would be very detrimental to our students and families that we serve,” Magnolia dean of students Nathan Williams said.

Principal Gokhan Serce urged the NCPI board to approve the Preface project under the condition that Magnolia be able to stay until June 18 of next year to ensure the school is not disrupted.

The NCPI board then motioned to approve the project with the condition and passed the motion with 10 votes and one abstention.

The vote ended a sometimes contentious arbitration between the school and Preface. Magnolia lost its bid to purchase the Cleveland site and had not yet secured a school when plans for the development first came before the community planning group.

In December of last year, Magnolia CEO Dr. Caprice Young told the Mission Times Courier that the school needed at least a year to find a new site and move in.

“If we have to move, our students are going to go to class in Preface’s offices,” she said.

Magnolia has since tentatively found a new site in Allied Gardens behind Foster Elementary School at the corner of Zion and Estrella avenues.

“The SDUSD board approved the basic terms of the agreement and a term sheet was executed,” Serce said. “However, the project is currently under CEQA review. Once the study is completed, the SDUSD board will consider the findings and proposed mitigations and vote to adopt the recommendations as well as approve the project, including the ground lease agreement.”

If the agreement is approved as expected, the school will begin building the site, which will consist of modular classrooms and be able to accommodate the same number of students that the Cleveland site does.

“We are excited about getting to our new location. The new site will be designed based on our needs and will have A/C units,” Serce said.

And once Magnolia has moved from the Cleveland site, Preface will begin construction on its long-awaited project — 50 single-family homes with two-car garages and front and back yards. The houses will be built along a circle with one entrance at Lake Atlin Avenue and the road will be private and maintained by the HOA.

Ted Shaw, a consultant for the Atlantis Group which works with Preface, told the NCPI board that the project will likely be approved by the city as early as August and the environmental process for the project was already complete.

Several residents at the June 8 meeting expressed concerns over traffic and fire safety, but Shaw said traffic caused by the new neighborhood will be less than what the school brings and that the fire department report said that safety exceeded regulations.

—Reach Jeff Clemetson at [email protected].