East Ward Trades High School Opening Date Pushed Back Again as Legal Fees Mount

Leer en español

NEWARK — The public school district has paid attorneys up to $650 an hour to renegotiate a lease deal with the developer of a school for the trades in the Ironbound, the opening for which has again been delayed, records show.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE FREE TAPINTO.NET NEWSLETTER

While the developer, Summit Assets, in May said the former St. James Hospital would be converted into a school by September, two weeks before the start of the academic year, the building remains unfinished. And the status of the $160 million, 20-year lease Newark Public Schools signed for the building in 2021 was unclear amid the mounting taxpayer dollars paid to renegotiate the contract.

Legal invoices TAPinto Newark obtained through a New Jersey Open Public Records Act request for bills from February to June show three attorneys for the firm Lasser Hochman LLC billed $23,605.70 for 57.8 hours to review the school district’s lease agreement with 155 Jefferson LLC, the owner and developer of the Newark High School of Architecture & Interior Design at 155 Jefferson St.

On Feb. 29, the Board of Education awarded the contract for legal services to pay the firm’s attorneys $350 per hour — significantly higher than the board policy limit on legal fees. The legal invoices, however, show the attorneys were hired at the beginning of that month prior to the board’s approval with some attorneys getting paid $450, $550 and $650 per hour — rates that are up to three times higher than what the school board later approved.

The $23,605.70 in legal fees shown in the documents add to the $857,000 in non-lease payments the school board approved for the project in 2022, both for the inclusion of specialized career technical education services not included in the contract’s original scope and for additional engineering costs.

DOWNLOAD THE FREE TAPINTO APP FOR MORE LOCAL NEWS. AVAILABLE IN THE APPLE STORE AND THE GOOGLE PLAY STORE .

The developer, Albert Nigri, CEO of Summit Assets, did not return requests for comment seeking an update on the negotiations. A school district spokesperson, however, expressed optimism about the school’s anticipated opening.

“We are extremely excited about the opening of the Newark High School of Architecture & Interior Design and will announce that date to the community at the appropriate time,” school district spokesperson Paul Brubaker said in a statement to TAPinto Newark on Wednesday.

“The board utilizes outside counsel with specialized expertise, like real estate in this instance, to assist the district in making the best-informed decision,” Brubaker said. “The firm Lasser Hochman was approved by the board to do just that.”

Nigri previously said the extended timeline was because of changes the district requested to the building.

On Thursday morning, two laborers worked from a lift abutting the former hospital building at Elm and Jefferson streets, and another worker could be seen laying materials on a stairwell that had been newly built onto the building. A large brick enclosure could also be seen as recently added to the building.

The general contractor on the job, Brian Hughes, of Hughes & Hughes, said he began working on the project in November of last year. He deferred to the school district for details, such as a timeline for the construction.

“We’re making very good progress,” said Hughes, who was on site Thursday. “We’re doing good, and we’re looking forward to the opening of the school.”

Newark Teachers Union President John M. Abeigon questioned the need for the magnet school for teaching trades amid overcrowding at nearby elementary schools in the East Ward.

“We advised the district that that would have been a perfect location for a middle school to alleviate the overcrowding in the neighboring elementary schools,” Abeigon said. “That recommendation was ignored.”

He said trades schools run by both Essex County and the Hudson County Central Labor Council fill Newark’s need for teaching technical skills, such as carpentry and plumbing, the basics of which should also be reintroduced to students in elementary and regular high schools.

“Our recommendation was ignored because we’re just teachers,” Abeigon said. “What do we know? But I can guarantee you that the teachers and the parents would have loved it in the Ironbound community.”

Issues surrounding legal spending, including legal spending on school construction, are not new to the school district. Ruling earlier this year on Newark Public Schools' four-year lawsuit seeking to have Maple Avenue School building “unsold” to a charter school, a Superior Court judge called the district’s legal spending in the case “shameful.”

State Education Department data show that in the 2022-23 academic year, the district spent nearly twice the state median on legal costs per student, with the typical legal costs in Newark at $84 per student compared to the statewide figure of $43 per student.

For more local news, visit TAPinto.net