Torrance to Hire Consultant to Help Lease School Site

For more than six months, the Torrance Unified School District has been searching in vain for a tenant to lease the vacant Columbia School.

Now, the district may enlist some assistance.

The school board is scheduled to vote Monday on whether to hire Westwood lawyer Richard Godino, who specializes in school property matters and who helped the Redondo Beach City School District lease its vacant schools.

This would be the first time the Torrance district has used a consultant to help decide the future of a vacant school. Plagued with dwindling student enrollment, Torrance has closed 15 schools in the past two decades.

“I think we recognize we need someone who has some expertise and experience in this field,” board President Owen H. Griffith said. “(Godino) has a very enviable track record.”

The district probably will use Godino to locate a developer willing to enter into a long-term lease for the land, Griffith said.

“The sentiment on the board is to look at something other than a sale,” he said.

The school district has been criticized by some residents for being too quick to sell its vacant schools. Since 1969, the district has sold 10 of the 15 schools it closed. In contrast, the Redondo Beach district has closed seven schools and leased six of them.

If the Torrance school properties had been leased instead of sold, critics say, the district could have capitalized on soaring California real estate values and maintained a steady rental income.

Godino said last week that a long-term ground lease, in which the current buildings would be removed and replaced with new structures, may be suitable for the Columbia site.

“The primary thing is to sit down and figure out what’s doable on the site,” Godino said.

If he is hired, Godino would receive a fee based on a percentage of the first year’s total rent, according to the agenda for Monday’s meeting.

The 4.95-acre site is at 4502 186th St., west of Hawthorne Boulevard in northwest Torrance. Columbia School closed in the spring of 1988.

The school board first sought bids from prospective tenants early this year. Stymied when no bids were forthcoming, the board changed the lease terms and reopened its search. When no one submitted a bid by the second deadline in September, board members decided to try leasing again with a consultant’s assistance.

School trustee John Eubanks, an advocate of leasing schools, said the district’s original leasing terms may have been too rigid. “Maybe we were going about it the wrong way,” he said.

Now, he said, “we’re being sort of open-ended on what the particular arrangement would be.” The possibilities include the school district acting as co-developer for the property and sharing the profits generated by development there, he said.

“We could certainly use the money. There’s no doubt about that,” Eubanks said.

The district has been forced to cut nearly $3 million from its 1990-91 budget so far this year. It laid off 39 non-teaching employees last month.