Proposal rejected for second consecutive year after divide deepens at City Hall | ByAlexander Castro-July 25, 2025 5:41 pm
The Carl G. Lauro school building on the morning of July 25, 2025, in Providence’s Federal Hill neighborhood. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
The Providence City Council voted Thursday night to defeat a proposal crafted by its own president and the mayor that would have leased a vacant building to charter school Excel Academy.
But on Friday morning, the former Carl G. Lauro Elementary School was not exactly vacant. Workers went in and out of wide open doors on both sides of the 140,000-square foot building. The hum of several of the approximately 35 air conditioners could be heard from the sidewalk, as could the occasional power tool.
The building at 99 Kenyon St. costs Providence about $300,000 annually, said Josh Estrella, a spokesperson for Mayor Brett Smiley. The building needs to be preserved because the state-run Providence Public School District (PPSD) still has plans to use it. Estrella said the city’s current costs include utilities, general maintenance, roof work, fire alarms, and labor.
“The City spends approximately $300,000 a year to maintain this vacant, dormant building, which will have an active school presence connected to it, adding to the building’s security risk,” Estrella said.
Going forward, the costs for renovating and maintaining the building to PPSD’s liking will fall upon the district itself. PPSD spokesperson Suzanne Ouellette said in a Friday email the district is reassessing construction timelines and costs in the aftermath of the lease’s rejection, as it will use the building in the upcoming academic year as a temporary swing space for students of Asa Messer Elementary School before they can attend classes in a facility that’s still being built.
“In the short-term, PPSD will be responsible for bearing the full cost of utilities, custodial, and maintenance for the Lauro building versus sharing them with Excel,” Ouellette wrote — bad news amid a potential $5 million drop in federal funding, she added.
In the longer-term, Ouellette said the district is now without lease revenue it meant to use in support of school facility upgrades across the city.
The old elementary school once accommodated up to 1,050 students, but overly pricey needed upgrades led the state-run district to close the Lauro School in 2023. Since then the unoccupied building has become a testing ground for sparring ideas about education in not just the capital city but the state itself.
“This was a chance to say yes to students, to families, and to a smarter future for Providence,” Victor Capellan, founder and CEO of Rhode Island Education Collective and a former senior adviser to the state education department’s commissioner, said in a Friday morning statement. “Instead, we are left with a building that continues to drain public resources while children are denied better options.”
