Piedmont Play School (PPS) is a valuable community resource which has been a part of Piedmont for three quarters of a century. As a former student, I truly appreciate the impact this organization has had on our community since it opened in the late 1940s. I know the impact attending a great preschool can have on a child and on the community in which the child lives.
With that said, I am troubled by the rhetoric that currently seems to be going around our community that the City of Piedmont is treating Piedmont Play School poorly or violating some unwritten agreement with the organization that the building at Hampton would be its forever home. I attended the PPS when it was located on what was then a city-owned playground. When the school district wanted that land for sports use, Piedmont Play School moved into the lower level of the Community Hall.
Piedmont Play School and the city then forged a private-public partnership to build a new public facility at Hampton Field. PPS and the community paid two-thirds of the cost of the building and the city paid the other one-third of the cost. In order to reduce construction costs, PPS managed the construction of the building. At the end of the construction, PPS transferred, “…all right, title and interest it may have in such building and improvements to the city.” For its part in funding the construction of the new public facility, PPS’s contribution to the building was amortized over twenty five years of rent-free use of the facility. Divided across the years of the agreement, this amounts to approximately $9,600 per year, which coincidentally is the approximate amount the city is paying to rent outside facilities for one of its preschool programs.
In many ways, Piedmont has changed since Piedmont Play School opened in the late 1940s. Our community has changed since the building at Hampton opened twenty-five years ago. The demand for Recreation Department programming, specifically care for preschool-aged children, have increased dramatically. Using this city-owned building for city programs makes sense, rather than paying for outside space. In fact, the building has always been a joint use facility, with PPS using the space for most of the day during the school year and the Recreation Department using at other times.
This is not the first time the city has taken over management of facilities which were built or restored as a private-public partnership. Both the Piedmont Community Pool and the 801 Magnolia building are previous examples of this happening. The choice to return these facilities to public management generated significant discussion among Piedmonters, which is totally appropriate. This same discussion is happening with the Hampton building, which is a good thing. Asking a seventy-five year old organization to find a new home isn’t a decision that the city would take lightly. It would be done after careful analysis of the best use of a public facility along with the programs that, we the residents of Piedmont want from our local government.
(Editors’ note: On Nov. 3, the City of Piedmont published a statement about the use of the facility at 401 Hampton and included a list of FAQs that detail the city’s use agreement PPS.)