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A member of the Philadelphia City Council and leaders of West Oak Lane Charter School have quietly discussed a plan for the charter school to acquire the vacant Ada H. H. Lewis Middle School building.
“I have had conversations with leadership from West Oak Lane Charter School, who have expressed their interest in acquiring the property,” Councilmember Cindy Bass — whose district includes Germantown, where the school is located — told Chalkbeat in a statement Thursday. “Many community members have voiced support for returning the site to educational use. While the final decision rests with the School District, I am supportive of that direction.”
But any sale of the Lewis building to a charter school would need the school district’s approval — as Bass acknowledged — and a school board vote. There’s no sign that board members would approve any such sale.
The district is undergoing a long-term planning process to take stock of its buildings and consider school closures, co-locations, and renovations. It intends to submit recommendations to the school board this winter.
“The Board of Education has not been involved in any discussions about the potential sale of the Ada Lewis building, nor have we received any recent proposals regarding a sale or transfer,” said Imahni Moise, a spokesperson for the school board, in a statement. “All decisions about District-owned facilities will be made through our ongoing comprehensive facilities planning process, which is still underway.”
The crumbling building that once housed the school has gained renewed attention in recent weeks after police found 23-year-old Mount Airy woman Kada Scott’s body buried in the woods behind the building. Lewis closed in 2008 but the district still owns the building and is tasked with inspecting it. Neighbors and Germantown community members say the building and surrounding grounds have attracted graffiti, squatting, and other criminal activity.
Bass has publicly called for the school district to demolish the building, saying “the risks posed by this abandoned building are no longer hypothetical. They are real and they are unfolding in front of us.”
In 2020, developer Ken Weinstein proposed clearing the Lewis campus to build homes and negotiated a letter of intent with the school district to do so. Despite his proposal receiving “near unanimous consent from the community,” according to Weinstein, the proposal was quietly tabled at a May 2021 school board meeting and hasn’t been taken up again.
Some community members claim Bass stood in the way of that sale, but the councilwoman has repeatedly denied doing so. She wrote an op-ed for the Chestnut Hill Local this month appearing to connect Weinstein’s plan with gentrification efforts in the Germantown community.
Debbera Peoples-Lee, chief executive officer of West Oak Lane Charter School, told Chalkbeat in an email that the school has “expressed interest” in acquiring the Ada Lewis building.
“The Ada Lewis site represents an unparalleled opportunity for WOLCS to expand its mission and meet both student and community needs,” Lee wrote in an email.
As the school district considers closing more buildings — it already has 20 vacant properties in its portfolio — Weinstein said in an interview this week that he hopes the Lewis sale goes through. But he said he’s skeptical that a charter school would be able to raise the more than $87 million he estimates it would take to renovate the building.
“I don’t care who redevelops or reinvests in that blighted site, it just needs to be done,” Weinstein said.
Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.
