Charter school completes purchase of Benet Hill

The last of the old Benet Hill Monastery grounds and buildings have been sold to the Colorado Springs Charter Academy, and the school plans to convert the former chapel into a junior high school.

The deal ends a years-long quest by Benet Hill to sell the property adjacent to Palmer Park and alleviates the school’s concerns about what might happen on the property that surrounds its main building.

The high-performing K-8 charter school has been housed on the property since it opened in August 2005, first renting space in the building that once housed a Catholic girls’ school. It purchased the main building, gymnasium, tennis courts and playground two years later for $4.75 million.

Charter academy board president Jill Gaebler said the school recently paid $1.25 million for an additional 12 acres, the chapel behind the main building and three aging houses on the property at 2577 N. Chelton Road. The deal was handled by Bach Real Estate Partners.

Those costs along with $750,000 for remodeling and the remainder of a loan the school took out in 2007 for the initial purchase were bundled together in a $7.35 million bond issue, she said.

It’s a good deal for the school because it wasn’t able to issue bonds in 2007 because of a lawsuit challenging the authority of the Colorado Charter School Institute, which charters the school. So the school was paying 10 percent interest on its conventional loan, Gaebler said.

Now, the school will pay about 5.5 percent interest on its bonds. Its monthly mortgage is about $41,600, or about $500,000 a year, she said.

The charter academy has been growing since its inception as a K-5 school, adding sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Gaebler said the school expects to be at capacity next fall with about 425 students.
It has no plans to expand beyond eighth grade.

Gaebler said the school will convert the chapel into space for a junior high for seventh and eighth graders.
“They need their own space and specialized teachers,” she said, adding that the building will house a science lab and art room along with lockers and classrooms.

The school’s board hasn’t decided what will become of the houses, although she said one probably will be razed because it’s in poor condition and contains asbestos.

The school had rented some space back to Benet Hill while the monastery completed new facilities in the Black Forest. But the monastery has moved all its operations to its its recently dedicated facilities there.
For more information on the Colorado Springs Charter Academy go to http://www.cscharter.org/.
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Call the writer at 636-0251.