November 15th , 2009
Convent News
I’m happy to announce that St. Brigid’s Parish has signed an agreement for the lease of our Convent Building. And the surprise tenant is.......drum roll please .....SCO Family Services. You may recall that SCO almost entered into a lease agreement one year ago to use our Convent as a residential school for children with Aspergers Syndrome (a form of high functioning autism).
At the last minute, SCO declined the lease because a new and larger property became available to them and they would be able to help more families than they could in Westbury. SCO spent months working out a proposal for their new facility, but in the end the cost to renovate the larger facility and to comply with the requirements of the Town of Huntington far exceeded the amount that State Education had approved for this work.
Since SCO had found a great welcome here -- recall that 300 residents came out to support the use of our building for this purpose and the Village of Westbury had approved the application for this use -- SCO requested that we resume negotiations and we were able to come with an acceptable lease proposal which was signed last week. The lease is subject to SCO obtaining the necessary approvals and funding from its various government partners. Our hope is that these approvals will be obtained in the next few months. No work can begin until SCO receives these approvals. Both SCO and St. Brigid's have made much progress and we're optimistic that the remaining approvals will be forthcoming.
SCO begins to pay a reduced rent amount between now and September 2010 as they will be renovating the building during that time. The full rent amount will be paid beginning in September 2010. The lease runs for ten years with a cost of living increase built into the lease each year.
This lease is certainly an answer to our prayers. We have a suitable tenant and our building will be used to help children and families that until now have had no in-state program to deal with the particular needs of youngsters with Aspergers Syndrome. We welcome SCO and the new school which will be named “Westbrook Academy.” The lease doesn’t solve all our financial problems. We’re still working on paying off the debt incurred because of the loss of rental income during the past two years and our current austerity measures are in place so that we keep expenses within our budget. But the income we will receive over the next year as the building is being renovated is going to help. Let us give thanks to God for this blessing.
