Not the ideal location for a fledgling elementary school.
"It would be nice to have an outdoor area where we could have a real recess," said Ben Speicher, KIPP Philadelphia Elementary's school leader - a term KIPP uses for principal. "It would also be nice to have a lunchroom, a gym and a location where kindergartners don't have to walk up to the third floor."
They may get it, thanks to an unlikely angel - tennis superstar Andre Agassi. Plans are in the works for the elementary school to move into a renovated building in the Allegheny West section of North Philadelphia next August.
If all works out, it will be the first charter school in the country to move into a building financed by a real-estate fund in which Agassi is a partner.
"We're still negotiating the final details of the contract," said KIPP Philadelphia CEO Marc Mannella. "We're never one to pop the champagne cork before we actually sign on the dotted line."
Andre Agassi Ventures and Canyon Capital Realty Advisors this month announced the launch of a real-estate fund, the Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund, "to promote the success and growth of best-in-class charter schools in urban communities across the United States."
The announcement said it is the first fund of its kind developed to help charter schools "overcome the biggest impediment to growth by facilitating the development of more than 75 urban school sites."
Finding appropriate school buildings is "one of the biggest challenges in Philadelphia and nationally for charter schools," Mannella said. "That's why you find so many charter schools opening in old storefronts or converted out of office space."
KIPP - which stands for Knowledge Is Power Program - opened a middle school in North Philadelphia in 2003 and another in West Philly in 2009.
