Coventry PEACE Campus Future Again In Dispute

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OH — The future of the Coventry PEACE campus is again in dispute.

The Heights Libraries is considering not signing a long-term lease with Coventry PEACE Inc., the organization that was supposed to take over management of the campus. Nancy Levin, director of Heights Libraries, said the group is not financially prepared to manage the property.

"After all these years they still don’t have the funds to safely and responsibly manage the building," she told Patch in a statement.

The Heights Libraries bought the former school building in 2018. Multiple organizations were already renting space in the campus. The tenants formed a management organization, Coventry PEACE Inc., and the Heights Libraries signed a 15-month lease with the group in October 2020. The tenants' hoped they would sign a 99-year lease with the library system in January 2022. Instead, the libraries are pulling back, worried Coventry PEACE Inc. can't financially manage the property.

Coventry PEACE Inc. said it will enter 2022 with about $43,000 in the bank. They project positive cash flow for the next nine years, the group said, and hope to have an accumulated reserve of more than $1 million.

Levin detailed several ways the library system aided Coventry PEACE Inc. since its formation and different financial burdens the Heights Libraries have assumed for the campus. This includes helping save $800,000 on HVAC repairs, paying for an engineering study and removing a leasing clause that would make the group responsible for the grounds around the building.

Coventry PEACE said it paid more than $100,000 in utility fees to the Heights Libraries this year and $5,500 in rent.

Levin countered that the library system had to evict a daycare that wasn't paying rent and noted that two major tenants — Ensemble Theatre and Family Connections — have left Coventry PEACE campus.

"The library now has the opportunity to revisit many other options for the building’s use. We have not set a date for the tenants to depart the building, we are not 'kicking them out,' but their experiment with managing the building may now be over," she said.

Coventry PEACE Inc. argued that if the library board does not move to a long-term lease, the tenants' leases will become month-to-month, which could lead to new problems at the site.

"No business, nonprofit or for-profit, can operate indefinitely amid such instability. As the building empties, the library will be on the hook for all costs and work currently covered by the tenants and the building will stand as a 60,000-square-foot daily reminder of what could have been," the organization said.

The Heights Libraries questioned whether the group's business plan is actually sound, arguing they're relying on short-term leases from small customers. Levin said that no matter the outcome of the current lease negotiations, the campus would not be allowed to fall into disrepair.

A vote on the lease between the library system and Coventry PEACE Inc. will be held during a special meeting of the Heights Libraries Board on Wednesday. The board will meet in executive session and then hold a public discussion on the property.