Public Pressure Mounting To Keep Coventry PEACE Campus As Is

Coventry PEACE Campus. Image from coventrypeacecampus.org.

Next week should be busy for the Coventry PEACE Campus, the former Coventry school-turned-arts-hive, the preservation of which has become a rallying point for East Side creatives.

Artful, representing individual artists and their studios, along with 11 other tenants, want CPC to remain where it is. The University Heights-Cleveland Heights Library Board, which owns the building, wants CPC out, claiming it can’t finance needed maintenance and repairs.

The board and CPC have been battling for years. As Cleveland Heights City Council President Tony Cuda said, “It’s all-out war,” he said. “They don’t get along on anything.”

Cuda thinks he Library board is “pretty dug in. Until they see a financial remedy, I don’t  see them bending on this.” That board “keeps saying they need partners to keep this thing together,” he added. “I expect they’re going to tell us what that means; I’m sure it means they need money.”

Public pressure in support of CPC is mounting. If nothing else, the optics of he Library board’s recent rejection of CPC’s purchase offer make the board look bad. A series of meetings early next week may shed some light on this weirdly opaque falling-out.

On Monday (October 7), Cleveland Heights City Council will vote on a resolution to keep CPC where it is, Cuda said Oct. 1. The council, which meets on the first and third Mondays of the month, has been preparing this move since Sept. 24, when the library board rejected CPC’s proposal to buy the building for one symbolic dollar (the same as the Library paid for it), and take over as its landlord.

The library board will meet at the same time council meets next Monday to discuss the future of CPC. The simultaneous meetings frustrate Cuda, who said the library board could change its meeting time to facilitate smoother civic discourse; a similar move by council would require a charter change, he said.

Coventry PEACE Campus should remain a “vibrant arts and culture hub,” he said, noting some 12 members of the public told the council last month they favor the status quo; three members of the library board, meanwhile, spoke “against keeping the tenants there, and I don’t know what they want to do with the building. They’re not saying anything right now.”

The next day, Tuesday, the council and library board, along with University Heights Mayor/CPC supporter Michael Dylan Brennan, will meet at 6 p.m. in council chambers to “have a dialogue about the future of the Coventry PEACE campus.”

If the board sticks to its guns, there may be casualties before the end of this year. Current leases are set to expire Dec. 31. Cuda would like them extended into 2025, he said, noting that two tenants have leases that go through next year. Most of the tenants, however, are on a month-to-month basis. Library Director Levin has said that the rental money is insufficient to address the maintenance needs of the former Coventry Elementary School building. “Others have speculated that the library board wants to demolish the building, because it’s, like, cost-prohibitive to maintain it,” Cuda said.

“We have more maintenance than we can cover right now, and the maintenance costs (for CPC) are north of $2 million, and that’s just the up-front maintenance costs, not the ongoing,” he added. “It’s formidable, no question about it.” He noted Cleveland Heights might be able to put up some American Rescue Plan Act funds to ease the financial pain.

The library board’s own structural engineers say the building is sound but it needs a new roof and new HVAC, Cuda said. “But I think the bones are OK; at least that’s what the library board said.” Despite such concerns, Cuda wants the CPC to  stay where it is, though he’d also like CPC to raise its occupancy level.

“I don’t have a preference as to who runs it, but it needs to remain an arts and culture center,” he said. “Only 45 percent of the space is used so they need to get some more tenants in there to make it financially viable. But I like it the way it is.”

The opinions expressed on CAN Blog are those of the individual writers. Art is somewhat subjective. Well, somewhat. But yes, everybody's a critic.


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