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Published on 07/06/1998 All articles from this issue

CSMA finds new home at San Antonio Loop site

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By Linda Taaffe

Town Crier Staff Writer

The scramble to find a new permanent location for the Community School of Music & Arts is over.

At the regular meeting June 30, the seven-member Mountain View City Council unanimously agreed to enter into a six-month negotiation period with the school to work out a lease on the city-owned land located at San Antonio Loop - a 1.8-acre parcel between Central Expressway and California Avenue.

School officials also plan, during this time, to develop site plans and architectural designs for a state-of-the art facility and to launch a campaign to raise $1.5 million towards construction costs, said Evy Schiffman, communication director for the arts school.

"We're very pleased with the decision," Schiffman said. She said the site is centrally located between Mountain View, Los Altos and Palo Alto and easily accessible from freeways and by public transportation.

"The fact is that the site is good for our current students and will allow us to expand to our under-served neighbors as well," she said. School officials began scouring the area for a new school site two years ago after learning that its lease at Huff School would be terminated this fall when the Mountain View School District reopens the school to accommodate the district's growing enrollment.

From the start, school officials said they had hoped to find a location in Mountain View, where the school was founded 30 years ago and has since served a quarter of a million people.

Skyrocketing rents and space shortages nearly forced the school to relocate outside of Mountain View. School officials temporarily moved the summer camp programs to Oak School in Los Altos and the Los Altos Lutheran Church. The Mountain View School District extended the lease on the private music rooms through June 1999.

"We are both challenged and energized by the vision of having a permanent home for arts education by the beginning of the next century," said Andrea S. Temkin, executive director for the arts school.

Temkin said more than 500 community members rallied support for the school, demonstrating to the council "the school's pivotal place in the local community and entire region."

Schiffman said school officials are investigating an interim site for the summer camp sessions and private lessons between the time the school must vacate its site at Huff School in June 1999 and when the new building is ready for occupancy.

She said school officials will move the administrative offices off-site to free up more space for music classes at the Huff site until the lease on private music rooms expires next June.