District expects Cioni building sale to close by Nov. 15
The school district has set a Nov. 15 closing date for the sale of its Cioni Administration Building, and officials are optimistic the district’s administrative offices will move to the former Frank L. Meagher Elementary School building sooner than anticipated.
The Cioni building, at 61 Crown St. in Uptown Kingston, and an adjacent property at 156 Green St. are being bought by BRE Properties for about $3.5 million.
BRE plans to convert the Cioni building into a hotel and spa and provide recreational amenities at a property it owns at 317 Wall St.
BRE was the highest of four bidders for the Cioni building.
The former Meagher Elementary building, at 21 Wynkoop Place in Midtown Kingston, is to house the district administrative offices that currently are in the Cioni building, as well as a prekindergarten center.
The administrative offices are expected to move to the Meagher building in May 2019, according to district Buildings and Grounds Director Thomas Clapper. The pre-K classes there are to start at the beginning of the 2019-20 school year.
Of the Cioni building, Clapper said district employees already are “starting to tear down what we have here, and things that we don’t need anymore [are] being recycled ....
“Everything’s on schedule,” he said. “In fact, they think we’re a little bit ahead of schedule.”
The pre-K classes at Meagher will be in addition to those already offered at George Washington Elementary School on Wall Street in Kingston.
The Meagher building dates to 1874 and has been expanded three times. It last was used as an elementary school in the 2011-12 school year. The work to renovate the building for use as an administrative headquarters and pre-K center, approved by school district voters in June 2017, has been budgeted to cost $4.23 million.