ACPS Signs Lease on Peyton Street Building

It’s Alexandria City Public Schools that’s moving into 216 S. Peyton St., causing the landlord to abruptly discontinue talks with entrepreneur Paul Cianciolo, who had hoped to open a hostel there.

In a document from Educational Facilities Office Director William Finn through Superintendent Morton Sherman, ACPS outlined a 10-year, four-month lease agreement for the Old Town property.

The School Board approved the lease at its Aug. 22 meeting for the ACPS Interim Educational Program to move in around mid-October. The lease ends December 2023.

The school system is closing its Stonewall facility and the new lease will save the system about $60,000 per year, according to School Board Chairman Karen Graf. ACPS is currently moving the Interim Educational Program students out of Stonewall and the Adult Education Program from there at the end of the year.

Graf says she supports the new Old Town facility due to its good location near public transportation and it “provides opportunities for kids there to be involved in community service.”

The Interim Educational Program is an option for students at the middle and high school levels who are not functioning well in a general education environment like T.C. Williams High School.

When it moves from Stonewall, the program is also expanding from a half-day to a full day.

Base annual rent for ACPS at the Peyton Street location will be $225,000 or about $22.50 per square foot excluding utilities and cleaning.

Cianciolo told Patch that he was notified by the building’s landlord recently that another, unnamed tenant was preferred.

“It was kind of out of the blue,” he said earlier this month.

Nearby business owners and residents along with parents of children attending nearby daycare centers had expressed concern about the type of customers a hostel might attract. 

Cianciolo said Monday that he has returned the $11,000 in crowdfunding monies that he raised for the hostel project. He hasn’t given up his dream of opening a hostel and said he’s been brainstorming with Rob Portman, who was instrumental in renovating the Old Town Theater. 

“I’d like to stay in Alexandria, but I’m looking at other areas,” Cianciolo said.