Sag Harbor Village Lays Down Guidelines For Stella Maris Property

After three years of sitting vacant since closing its doors to students in 2011, the Stella Maris Regional School in Sag Harbor is on the market.

Listed on September 30 by Douglas Elliman at a price of $3.5 million, the 34,300-square-foot former Catholic school sits on three-quarters of an acre, is zoned for half-acre residential use, and is owned by the Diocese of Rockville Centre. An online listing was taken down early last week for reasons that the diocese, to which the brokerage referred a question seeking explanation, declined to share. The listing had said that the possibilities for use of the property at 135 Division Street were essentially endless.

Not quite so.

According to Sag Harbor Village building inspector Jose Escalante, the property can be used for a single- or two-family dwelling under the current R-20 zoning, although the latter would be considered a special exception use. Any other uses, such as apartments or offices, would require a variance or special exception permit from the Village Zoning Board of Appeals. A subdivision would be subject to Village Planning Board approval, as well as potential review by Suffolk County.

There are currently several offers on the table for the old school already, and offers are still being taken, according to Gioia DiPaolo, a manager at the Douglas Elliman office in Sag Harbor.

Stella Maris, once the oldest Catholic School on Long Island, had to close after the 2011 academic year because of declining enrollment and a growing deficit. The diocese, which operates all of the catholic schools on Long Island, had said the school was operating at a deficit for three years and would have been operating at a $480,000 deficit if it had stayed open another year. Stella Maris’s enrollment for the 2011-12 school year included only 44 students, a steep decline from 127 students in 2010-11.

Using the building for another school would not be permitted without a variance or special exception approval, as that nonconforming use of the residentially-zoned property is considered to have been abandoned since the school has been vacant more than 12 months. Sag Harbor Mayor Brian Gilbride, said however, that while the village itself is not interested in doing anything with the property, he would like to see the local school district do so.

“The best use would have something to do with Pierson High School,” Mr. Gilbride said last week. “It’s been vacant for a while. I don’t know the condition of the building [but] I find it hard to believe there couldn’t be some use there.”

“Real estate” was on the agenda at a recent executive session of the Sag Harbor School Board, but Superintendent of Schools Katy Graves said this week that there could be problems in meeting strict guidelines of the State Education Department, as the building is old and has not been updated for some time.

Ms. Graves did add, though, that a facility like Stella Maris would be beneficial for the Sag Harbor School District because of an increasing number of students from outside the district who attend school in Sag Harbor. In addition, some of Sag Harbor’s special education students are placed in other districts rather than being educated in Sag Harbor, something the superintendent said she would like to see change.

“If we ever got to the point where we didn’t have room for them, we didn’t want to lose that extra revenue,” Ms. Graves said of students from outside the district, whose tuition accounts for more than $500,000 in revenue for the Sag Harbor School District. “Should we have more space, perhaps we can keep those students. There are good reasons why we would look at Stella Maris.

“Should we move in that direction, we would be transparent with everyone,” she continued.

While there does seem to be a trend of turning non-residential buildings into homes and apartments in Sag Harbor—consider the current transformation of the old Bulova Watchcase Factory and use of the former Sag Harbor United Methodist Church as a private residence—David Kronman, the project manager for Cape Advisors, the developer behind Watchcase, said his company would not be interested in acquiring the vacant Catholic school.

“We’re not at this point. We’re focusing on finishing up construction on our two projects in Sag Harbor,” he said, referring not only to Watchcase, but also to Baron’s Cove Inn, which the company has been renovating into a new hotel and restaurant. “I don’t know if Stella Maris is the right fit for us,” Mr. Kronman said.