The State Education Resource Center will move its headquarters and dozens of employees to the former Timexpo Museum in the center of Waterbury beginning in early January.
After years of negotiation, the quasi-public education agency last week signed a 10-year lease of the three-story brick building at 175 Union St., inside the Brass Mill Commons shopping center.
Officials say the lease will bring new life to a building that has been vacant since the museum closed in 2015 and bring SERC’s consulting and training services close at hand to Waterbury public schools.
“It’s a big win for the city to have an organization such as SERC serving our city,” Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary said. “Obviously we are happy to have such experts here holding conference after conference.”
Between incoming rent and SERC taking over maintenance costs, the move will mean a net positive of about $250,000 a year to the NVRDC budget, Thomas Hyde, CEO of the Naugatuck Valley Regional Development Corp, told his board of directors during an April 26 meeting.
The NVRDC was formed in 2020 from a dormant Waterbury-based economic development agency, inheriting its investment assets and the Timexpo property. It aims to coordinate regional economic development efforts, emulating the Capital Region Development Authority’s efforts for Hartford and surrounding towns.
“I think we are all excited to move this project forward and change the overall budget of the organization moving forward,” Hyde told his board.
SERC was formed in 1969 to provide training and services around special education. Its mission has expanded to include training and services around racial equity and social justice.
SERC Executive Director Ingrid Canady said her board wanted to find a new headquarters inside an urban center, with good visibility and access to highways. The Timexpo museum is located a few blocks away from Waterbury schools’ central office, near the nexus of interstates 8 and 84.
SERC has a staff of about 50, most of whom spend most of their time on assignment within various school districts, Canady said. She said the agency recently celebrated its 50th anniversary and looks to spend the next half-century in Waterbury.
“SERC and the SERC Board of Directors are very excited to be calling Waterbury our home,” Canady said.
Under the lease agreement, SERC will get 11,568 square feet of “usable” space at Timexpo in return for yearly payments of $220,370 for the first five years and $242,407 for the following five years.
Under the lease, SERC has the right to extend the lease for an additional decade, paying $266,648 annually for the first five additional years, and $293,313 yearly for the following five.
NVRDC will pay J.A. Rosa Construction, of Wolcott, up to $560,155, to retrofit the museum for use by SERC. The renter will pay back the expense over 10 years at 2% interest.
The NVRDC will cover the roughly $163,000 expense of furnishing the office.
Dom Giglio, owner of Waterbury-based Giglio Commercial Real Estate, brokered the lease on behalf of the NVRDC.
