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Council sends proposed long-term lease with Excel Academy to ordinance committee after debate over terms
Summary
Providence City Council referred a proposed long-term lease with Excel Academy for the vacant College E. Laurel School building to the Ordinance Committee after council members raised concerns about the length, rent credits and sublease rights in the draft agreement.
The Providence City Council voted to refer a proposed resolution allowing a long-term lease with Excel Academy for the College E. Laurel School building to the Ordinance Committee after prolonged debate about the lease terms.
Councilman Reyes framed his objections to the draft as fiscal and control issues, saying “the terms of this lease are frankly one sided,” and listing concerns about the lease’s effective duration, credits that could reduce city rent, and the tenant’s ability to sublease or mortgage the lease interest.
Reyes told colleagues the agreement is written on paper as a 35-year lease but includes three automatic 10-year renewals unless the tenant opts out, a structure he said would hand control of the property to the tenant for up to 65 years with no city opt‑out. He also described the rent structure in the draft — a base rent with credits tied to capital improvements — as likely to leave the city with minimal income and an ongoing administrative burden to verify improvements.
Majority Leader Espinal, who introduced the motion to weigh and refer the item, said the lease would follow the normal committee process and that further review would take place in Ordinance Committee. Other members raised procedural and policy questions; the council did not adopt the lease at the meeting and instead voted to send it to committee for further markup.
Votes: the council recorded 10 votes in favor of referral, three votes against and two abstentions. The referral puts the resolution into the Ordinance Committee for detailed consideration, where members said they'd negotiate changes to the length, minimum guaranteed rent and oversight of subleases and capital-credit accounting.
The committee stage is expected to include more detailed legal and financial analysis of the draft lease. Council members who opposed the referral said they wanted more time to negotiate stronger protections for the city before sending it to committee; those supporting referral said committee review is the appropriate place for those technical negotiations.
