Closing of Pittsburgh Art Institute postponed
Potential buyer may have been found
A court-appointed receiver has halted Dream Center Education Holdings’ plans to close the Art Institute of Pittsburgh on March 31, claiming to have an experienced buyer in mind that is interested in taking control of the creative arts trade school.
Mark Dottore, a Clevelandbased federal receiver who took ownership of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and several other campuses two weeks ago, said the Strip District school would continue operating beyond March 31.
“The court put me in charge of all these assets — in this case, the assets are students,” Mr. Dottore said in a brief interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Thursday. “Right now, my concern is getting the students in a safe place.”
Mr. Dottore said he had identified a buyer that already owns a system of colleges — unlike Dream
Center, which bought 31 Art Institute campuses, along with South University and Argosy University, in 2017 from Pittsburgh-based Education Management Corp.
Mr. Dottore declined to name the possible buyer but said he hoped to announce details “in the coming weeks.”
Enrollment at the school has been halted until a buyer could step in, he added.
Dream Center, a Los Angeles-based charitable nonprofit that runs homeless shelters and other social service programs for the poor across the country, discovered last year that the schools would operate at an estimated $64 million loss in 2019, according to its filing seeking protection in federal receivership last month.
Akin to a bankruptcy situation, Mr. Dottore’s job is to keep the schools operating business-as-usual while protecting its operations from creditors.
The future of the school, nearly a century old, has been in limbo for much of the last month.
Last week, after the Pennsylvania Department of Education disclosed Dream Center’s plans to close the Art Institute of Pittsburgh by March 31, school officials released a statement saying they were aware of no plans to close while not explicitly saying the school would remain open.
Since then, the school administration has shared little more with students and employees. The Dream Center Education Holdings official who filed the closure plan referred questions to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Calls to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh have not been returned.
The U.S. Department of Education confirmed that Mr. Dottore has stopped the closure plans.
“He has made this decision so he can conduct an assessment of operations and make a determination for the campuses going forward,” an agency spokesman wrote in an email. “Mr. Dottore has advised the department that until he can make his assessment, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh will continue to teach and support its students.”
It is unclear what may happen should a sale not go through, but Mr. Dottore said he hopes to move quickly.
A sale under federal receivership would eliminate the school’s massive debt burden, which could make it attractive to the buyer he has in mind, Mr. Dottore said.
He has met in person with Dream Center Education Holdings in Arizona, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in the Strip District, and the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. — and everyone seems on board.
“My goal is to keep this moving,” he said. “I’ve been on 14 days, and it’s coming at me like a fire hose.”