An artist s rendering of the revitalized Havemeyer Building housing the Greenwich Center for the Arts.
(GREENWICH CITIZEN file photo )
Arts Center Deep-Sixed; Board of Ed Dragged Feet
Greenwich Citizen
Greenwich Citizen
Updated: 12/24/2008 01:26:56 PM EST
A $30 million dream plan to transform the clunky Havemeyer Building into a shining Greenwich Center for the Arts officially was declared dead Dec. 11 in a statement adopted by the Board of Selectmen (BOS) at Town Hall.
Read by First Selectman Peter Tesei, the statement oozed with regrets that a five-year campaign by the Greenwich Center for the Arts (GCA) to lease the Havemeyer for $1-a-year had fizzled - due largely to the eight-member Board of Education (BOE) dragging its feet.
BOE, cognizant of the fact that the GCA board had set an "end of December" deadline on its plan to pin down a lease, declared weeks ago that it would not decide on staying in the Havemeyer or moving out until January 2009. The date, of course, was past the "end of December" deadline set by the GCA. Finally
Under the awkward circumstances, the Town had its hands tied. That stems from the fact that, as Tesei noted, at this point the BOE legally controls the Havemeyer.
Resistance to the GCA proposed dollar-a-year lease has been cropping up among some GCA critics in the Representative Town Meeting (RTM), which threw cold water on the GCA play.
The RTM would have to approve the proposed lease before the GCA could "put a shovel in the ground" - a term marking the beginning of the construction project to transform the Havemeyer into a 21st century arts facility to benefit Greenwich citizens of all ages......
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