Arts center evicted, new owner in, as negotiations break down
After months of struggling to stay in the Green Street building that houses its dance studios and offices, the Brookline Community Center for the Arts faces homelessness. And the building's landlord is on the verge of selling the place to another buyer.
In a week of tumultuous negotiations, including an after-hours eviction notice served Wednesday night, the center reached agreement Thursday with landlord Edmund Shamsi that allows it until tomorrow to get out.
The arts center had filed court action against Shamsi Wednesday, that would have had both parties facing off in Norfolk County Superior Court tomorrow, but on Thursday its director, Dan Marshall, said the center was willing to dismiss the case in return for favorable vacating conditions, including time to pack.
The sides agreed the center would cover moving costs and the costs of two recently installed wheelchair lifts, while Shamsi would forgive more than $300,000 in debt incurred from deferred rent and construction loans.
''What we're doing is the best recourse given the situation," Marshall said Thursday.
Marshall said the center had been struggling to hold onto its space after meeting a May 2 drop-dead deadline to secure funding to buy the building, only to be told Shamsi had agreed to sell it to the Kabbalah Centre. The center is a national nonprofit that focuses on spirituality based on Jewish mysticism and has a center in Newton.
According to Rita Lu, the arts center's lawyer, the court complaint it filed claimed Shamsi threatened the center with eviction in order to get it to complete renovations, including the two wheelchair lifts, that ultimately increased the value of the building, while simultaneously signing a purchase and sale agreement with the Kabbalah Centre.
Shamsi would not confirm that the Kabbalah Centre was the purchaser, but he said a closing on the building was imminent.
''I feel bad for the BCCA," said Shamsi, ''that they could not get their act together in time, but unfortunately legal obligations put me in such a position that I couldn't do anything else but proceed with the people I'd contracted to sell the building to."
The center is facing heavy losses by leaving so quickly and canceling classes, said Marshall. He said he is personally liable for $300,000, and his two co-founders will owe $100,000 to $150,000.
Marshall said he will try to find local spaces for classes already in progress to continue, and is still hopeful that the BCCA will return to its 14 Green St. site, even if it's owned by the Kabbalah Centre.
''At this point, they're working on closing the deal [to buy the building]," he said. ''Then they will assess the space and situation, and contact us about a deal."
Staff and supporters will hold a vigil today at the Green Street site for the future of the center.
