Michael Lang and Paul Green. (photo by Dion Ogust)
After numerous delays and a final deadline, the sale of Zena Elementary School was completed Friday, July 31 with the Kingston City School District officially handing over the facility to Music Labs, Inc., with the Woodstock Music Lab one step closer to becoming a reality.
The Woodstock Music Lab was initially touted as a partnership between Paul Green, founder of the Paul Green Rock Academy, and before that the School of Rock; and Michael Lang, a concert promoter and co-creator of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Festival. Last year, Green described the Woodstock Music Lab as “one third-college-level music school, one-third artistic and technology think tank, one-third artist development hub.”
Since the closing in the early afternoon on July 31, official titles were announced in a press release, with Green taking on the role of chief creative officer, and Lang vice-president of business development. Also on board are chief Operating Officer David Jarrett, a hospitality developer; and Chief Executive Officer Bill Reichblum, an internet entrepreneur and former dean of Bennington College in Bennington, VT.
Green spoke this week about the importance of finalizing the purchase of the former Zena Elementary School. “I moved up here four years ago working on this project, so to finally get a set of keys to the perfect building for the project was kind of like a dream come true,” Green said. “I’m still pretty shocked it happened.”
Zena was last open as an elementary school to students in the district during the 2012-13 school year; it was earmarked for closure in a comprehensive “rightsizing” plan to address dwindling enrollment which resulted in Kingston’s number of elementary schools reduced from eleven to seven over a two-year period.
The district received its only bid on the property in January 2014. That $926,000 bid came from Zena 4 Corners, LLC, and its principals, Lysbeth and Steve Kursh, who saw the potential for the property to serve multiple uses. Last year, Steve Kursh said he hoped Zena’s gymnasium and outdoor sports field could be used by Woodstock Day School, where he and his wife’s son goes to school. Zena 4 Corners has since been renamed Music Labs, Inc.
The first deadline on closing on the property came and went on September 1, 2014. More recently, a closing was scheduled to take place at 3 p.m. on April 30 of this year, but it fell through at the 11th hour when a Woodstock Music Lab investor pulled out of the project. With some School Board trustees expressing concern, a final deadline of Friday, July 31 was set, with the district saying they planned to put the property back on the market if the deal fell through. This week Green said he believed there might have still been hope had they not been able to complete the transaction by the district’s deadline, but he admitted it would have made things much more difficult.
“If July 31 passed, it didn’t mean we couldn’t buy it anymore, but it would have thrown the whole thing into a period of profound uncertainty,” Green said. “So to be able to really lock in that ‘step one’ of having the real estate taken care of, it’s a game-changer and you can already feel the excitement building around the project.”
Music Labs, Inc. had reportedly been seeking around $10 million to open the school, which would include the acquisition of the property, retrofitting the facility to meet its needs, and the purchase of equipment and other incidentals it would need to open the school. This week, Green said closing on the former elementary school was just the first step.
“We still have a lot more money to raise, but we can go into any meeting now and say that we have the perfect location completely under our control at a very reasonable price, zoned for what we want, with the local government behind the project. It’s such an advantageous position to be in,” he said. “We had a large list of people who said, ‘Acquire the real estate and come back and talk to us,’ so we go back and talk to them now. The first level of investors are always the riskiest, and they’re angels. They fall from the sky and take the risks. Now we’re a company with assets and a scheduled opening. If just a third of the people who said they were going to invest, invest, we’re going to get very close to our full capitalization.”
‘Soft opening’ next year
The Woodstock Music Lab will make full use of the roughly 50,000 square foot building on 23 acres, converting the existing school into classrooms, recording studios, rehearsal rooms, and other multimedia and broadcast facilities. According to their press release, the plan is to host industry professionals, mentors and visiting faculty as part of a two-year program for students.
Initially planned for a September 2015 opening, the delays in closing and the need to raise more capital meant pushing that back a bit.
“What we’ll probably do is a soft opening in September 2016, probably with 40 handpicked students, and then a full opening with 240 students the following September,” Green said. “And we’ll probably use the facility to run summer camps in 2017 as well.”
In the meantime, there’s plenty of work to be done, both in securing the funding to get the school up and running and in getting the word out to prospective students.
“As soon as we raise the next target, we’ll start marketing and start some minor improvements,” Green said. “It’s our building to maintain now, so there will have to be that. And the next round of money we’ll start to put recording studios in. The great thing about the building is that it’s on three floors, so we can close off the third floor until we need to, and we can grow into the process.”
A ‘great use’
Kingston City School District Superintendent Paul Padalino could not be reached for comment this week, but shortly after the closing fell through in April he reiterated his enthusiasm for the project and expressed hope it would all come to fruition.
“I think it’s a great plan and a great idea,” Padalino said in late April of this year. “I’m one of the biggest fans of this idea. It’s a great use for the school; it’s great for the community.”
Kingston board of education president Nora C. Scherer weighed in. “I am, of course, delighted that the Kingston City School District has finalized the sale of the Zena School. I daresay that many of my fellow trustees would say the same. The prospect of a music school occupying the former elementary school is a promising one for both the Town of Woodstock and the surrounding area. I am sure that in due course, the happy sound of both vocal and instrumental melodies will echo in the halls as students arrive to study different aspects of making music,” she wrote. “Although there were times when it looked as though the sale would not be finalized, the trustees of the Kingston Board of Education were very patient and supported the extension of the deadline more than once. I do believe the end result will prove serendipitous for all.”
In a prepared statement, Jarrett summed up feelings. “We’ve been both humbled and honored by the support of the local community for this project, and look forward to continued collaboration with area residents and our stakeholders as we proceed with the development of the Woodstock Music Lab,” he said.