No lease agreement yet for U.D. school offices in Haverford

UPPER DARBY >> A lease still has not been signed for Upper Darby School District administrative office space in Haverford Township a month after the school board approved the deal.

An Oct. 10 response to a Right to Know request filed with the district seeking a signed copy of the lease to rent Suite 300 at 401 Pilgrim Lane in the neighboring township came up empty as a signed copy of the agreement has not been finalized.

“Unfortunately, I am unable to grant your request because the district is still negotiating the terms of the requested lease, so a finalized, executed version does not yet exist,” read the official Right to Know request response by district Open Records Officer Craig Rogers.

The board approved the lease with property owner 401 Pilgrim Associates, L.P at its Sept. 10 meeting pending solicitor approval.

Rogers said after that meeting that there was no timeline set to get the lease reviewed by district Solicitor Kyle Berman of Fox Rothschild LLP, and finalized. After the lease is signed it will not come to another board vote for approval.

The location of the tentative office space is located about a mile away from the current administration building in the Aronimink School complex on Bond Avenue in Drexel Hill. While the office has a Drexel Hill zip code, the location is just yards away above the Upper Darby Township border in Haverford.

District Superintendent Dan McGarry said last month it was a goal to lease a space that would not inhibit district taxpayers if the district went lease-to-own on a property within the district. Alas, a suitable location was not found within district boundaries anyway.

Any details about the conditions of the lease have been very scant, with McGarry only saying that it would be for a maximum lease term of five to seven years.

Drexel Hill resident Tony Reagoso said at the Oct. 8 school board meeting there’s no reason to have a lease in another township.

“Why you can’t go to Drexeline and try and rent space from Drexeline is beyond me,” he said pointing attention to the Drexeline Shopping Center at Township Line and State roads in Drexel Hill. “They’re looking for tenants. Go down there and try to make a deal and spend our money in Upper Darby.”

The Drexeline Shopping Center has been a point of contention in the township since plans to do an over $100 million update on the decades-old property have stalled after a civil suit was filed in Delaware County Court of Common Pleas last summer against the township to consider its environmental impacts. Reagoso shaded school board member Don Fields for being one of the initial petitioners in that case that has delayed project construction. Fields dropped his involvement with the lawsuit after his appointment to the school board in August 2018.

The petitioners and township settled the manner out of court late last year.