AUBURN – The Renaissance School, a hospital-run day program for children with behavioral problems and emotional disabilities, will move into Lake Street Elementary School.
St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center will lease the 80-year-old brick building for $75,000 a year. It will combine its elementary and middle schools and move them into the space over the summer.
The school will serve up to 38 students in kindergarten through grade eight. All come from the area and have moderate-to-severe emotional problems, such as depression and bipolar disorder.
Renaissance elementary students currently take classes at the hospital. Middle school students take classes in a Mount Auburn Avenue portable classroom leased from the Auburn school system.
But Auburn needed that portable for its Washburn Elementary School. The school committee agreed last week to let Renaissance lease the Lake Street school, instead.
Lake Street, a K-3 Auburn public school, will close this month. Its students will move to a new school on Park Avenue.
Auburn officials had considered using the old Lake Street building for Head Start, for public preschool or for other programs. But they decided they wanted to design a systemwide master plan – which will include the fate of Lake Street and the soon-to-close Webster Intermediate School building – before making any permanent arrangements.
A community master plan discussion is expected this fall.
If Renaissance didn’t lease the Lake Street building, Auburn’s business manager said, it likely would have remained empty for a while.
“It’s always better to have a leased property rather than a vacant building,” Jude Cyr said.
Renaissance will lease the building for three years and will make some renovations, such as turning some classrooms into counseling and office space, making the building handicapped-accessible and adding a security feature so visitors must be buzzed in.
The school’s playground, a favorite among neighborhood families, will be open to the public after school, a St. Mary’s official said.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.