Town Manager Grady Miller has made an informational presentation to the Town Council to propose the Town consider a short-term lease of the Four Peaks School building on Calaveras Avenue. He discussed the issue at the council’s retreat session late last month.

The Fountain Hills Unified School District consolidated facilities several years ago, leaving the building available for other uses.

Through a partnership with the East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT), FHUSD, Arizona Business Advisors, and the Town of Fountain Hills, an EVIT school campus and the Biz Hub were launched in 2018 at the former Four Peaks Elementary School. EVIT had planned on using the facility as an opportunity to expand into the greater Scottsdale-Fountain Hills area. Unfortunately, EVIT was never able to meet its attendance targets for students at this location. As a result, EVIT pulled out of the campus in January of 2021, which then caused the school district to take over the leases and to have a more active role in managing the day-to-day activities at the former Four Peaks Elementary School.

The vision behind Biz Hub was to utilize the vacant school building as a business accelerator for new businesses looking to grow and expand. The concept behind a business accelerator is that after a period of time, the businesses housed in Biz Hub would grow to the point that they would need to relocate to new space elsewhere in Fountain Hills and beyond.

Due to EVIT not thriving at this site and being involved in the management of the overall building, the Biz Hub has not realized its full potential.

Miller said staff is in the process of identifying costs associated with operating the Four Peaks Elementary School as the Biz Hub and potentially for special interest classes and recreation space. All of the information has not been finalized for council consideration at this time. The Fountain Hills Unified School District has indicated that the cost for the Town to lease the space would be extremely low in exchange for the town paying for the utilities, maintenance of the building and grounds, and managing the leasing to the tenants in the facility.

“The Town would be interested in an initial lease period of three years in order to properly give the Biz Hub an opportunity to be utilized as originally envisioned,” Miller said. “At the end of the lease period, the town will evaluate the effectiveness of Biz Hub and the cost of operating and maintaining the facilities before coming back to the Town Council with a recommendation about continuing the program or terminating it.”

The point in bringing this up to the council at this time is to determine if there is an interest in having Biz Hub continuing as proposed, and for the Town to have a larger role in operating and managing the building for this purpose and other potential Town uses. Other Town uses may consist of recreation and special interest classes offered by the Community Services Department. The facility was used for programing last summer when the Community Center was closed for renovation.

Biz Hub is identified as a strategic priority in the 2022 Strategic Plan.