Cohoes center to be put up for sale
It’s $375,000 in debt; board seeking buyer who’ll reopen services
The board that runs the Cohoes Community Center is preparing to put the shuttered building on the market.
Board chairman David Mitola told the Times Union that the 28,000-square-foot building will be listed soon once the other eight board members sign off on a contract with a commercial real estate agent.
Mitola had told elected officials about the impending real estate listing in an email last week. While he wrote elected officials that the building will be listed Monday, he told the Times Union it’s unknown the exact date when the center will be put on the market.
The move follows an emotional five months that started in October when the center suddenly closed, leaving the parents of more than 150 without child care, and ending the jobs of 72 full- and parttime employees.
A packed meeting was held at the nearby Cohoes Senior Center March 7 in an attempt to update the community about what could be done to reopen the center, which opened on Remsen Street in 1971.
Mitola, a Cohoes dentist, told the community meeting that the center is $375,000 in debt and still must spend $12,000 a month on insurance, utilities and other expenses to maintain the building. The center’s main sources of revenue were from government subsidies to run its universal pre-k and day care programs, as well as the charges it levied
customers to use the center’s pool, exercise room and gymnasium.
The board chairman said the center has been appraised, but there is no listing price established yet. While the center is still occasionally being rented out to outside groups, it isn’t enough to cover monthly expenses.
“We cannot continue to maintain the building indefinitely. We don’t have any income,” Mitola said, adding the board’s first priority is to sell it to someone that would keep the buildingasitis.
“We’re really doing everything we can so we can find someone who’s willing to keep it as a recreational center,” he said.
The Cohoes school district has said it can’t buy the building because it would cost more than $6 million to upgrade the center to meet state Education Department standards.
Assemblyman and former Cohoes mayor John T. Mcdonald III said he has secured $500,000 in state grant monies to assist a government entity in purchasing the building. But there is no such plan in place yet.
“I’m still continuing to talk to the city and county,” Mcdonald said Tuesday. “There’s interest.”
Albany County spokeswoman Mary Rozak provided a statement to the Times Union, saying the county is “currently getting an engineering assessment of the building as well as an appraisal.” “Once we have that information,” the statement read, “the next step would be to review (the center’s) financials in order for us to make an informed decision.”
Cohoes Common Council President Christopher Briggs, however, said the city can not take on the financial burden that would come with owning
the building.
“It’s a very difficult situation because everyone wants this reopened yesterday,” Briggs said. “We just can’t take taxpayer dollars and throw them into the wind to see what happens.”
The city school district temporarily took over the center’s before- and afterschool programs after the closure, and then got a third party to run those programs in the district’s three elementary schools. The pre-kindergarten program was already housed in the school district. However, the community center’s day care, which was caring for 29 toddlers and preschoolers at the time, was permanently closed — as well as all center recreation programs.
Mitola said Tuesday that before the closing, the board was not getting accurate financial statements prepared by center staff. He said the board was unaware of the extent to which payroll was outpacing the center’s reimbursements.
A month before the center’s closing, the board asked executive director Curtis Hovey to resign.
Mitola said it is still unclear why the financial numbers were not depicted accurately. He said an investigation into the center’s finances is still ongoing. The Albany County district attorney’s office subpoenaed the center’s records days after its closing. But there has been no update provided by the DA’S office.
There have been no allegations concerning malfeasance involving either the former executive director or the board.
Hovey couldn’t be reached Tuesday for comment.
Because of increasing costs to staff the child care programs — which were provided on a sliding fee scale to help lower-income parents — Mitola said the center likely would have faced closure regardless.
“We couldn’t keep up with increased costs with operating those programs,” he said. “We needed more outside income.”
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We’re really doing everything we can so we can find someone who’s willing to keep it as a recreational center.” David Mitola, Cohoes Community Center board chairman