In the echoey expanse of a vacant area in Marketplace Mall in Henrietta, staffers with Mary Cariola Center and journalists took a walk.
Sun poured through the skylights onto empty storefront windows, a dismantled mannequin in one, a jewelry box in another.
“I remember the pet store being here, some clothing stores,” said Rachel Griffin, Mary Cariola's director of school programs, as she passed the gates drawn across the familiar former shops. "There were some jewelry stores in here."
A decal on the wall read: “Make it Your Place...” which is what Griffin and others with the Mary Cariola Center are setting out to do.
A new Mary Cariola School for students with complex disabilities could locate in the northern portion of the former shopping mall. A new University of Rochester Golisano Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Institute would take the center portion, officials said, and a new URMC medical center with a yet-to-be-defined focus would fill the rest.
The initial announcement came last Friday, and additional details emerged this week.
“I remember up in here was a small play area. At some point, I remember my kids running around in those areas,” Griffin said. “So it'll be nice to see kids in the mall again, in this space watching kids light up again.”
Mary Cariola provides educational programs and therapeutic services for students with complex disabilities at various campuses around Rochester. The pending purchase of this space would mean bringing most everyone together, likely starting with middle schoolers who are currently in an old nursing home building on East Henrietta Road near College Town.
“That space is truly not ideal for our students,” said middle school Principal Courtney Liggett. “For example, our (physical education) space for our students is in a building that's behind Wendy's. So for our students to access (it) we have to walk through a Wendy's drive through. Which does offer a lot of valuable lessons, you know, looking for cars and listening for cars and such, but it's just not ideal.”
The center received $25 million from Tom Golisano for the project, and another $4 million from New York state.
Moving forward with the project’s design, Liggett said the plan is to be intentional down to the finer details so that the space is sensory-friendly and accessible.
“We definitely want to make sure our classrooms do not have the echoes like this,” Liggett said referring to the resounding reverb in the vacant hallway of the northeast corridor of the mall.
Mary Cariola staffers have toured facilities like the International Academy of Hope (iHOPE) in New York City, which serves students ages 5 to 21 who have traumatic brain injuries, to get a sense of best practices.
"They built their school to have access to a plug in the floor so that they're able to charge the wheelchairs without bringing students over to the side of the classroom,” she said. “So little things like that.”
"We want to know what's working really well for these other schools, and also what is working not so well. What would they change with regard to Hoyer lifts? ... Do they use portable Hoyers or are they in the ceiling?” she added. “And with regard to the bathroom, is there space between the bathroom and the changing table, or is that one large space? ... We're just trying to gather information so that we have the research behind what we're intending to do.”
A Hoyer lift is a mechanical device used to transfer a person between spaces, like a chair to a toilet.
Marketplace owner Wilmorite emptied and closed the interior mall area at the end of last year, and selling that space to nonprofits would make it tax exempt.
The entire mall area has lost significant value in recent years, dropping from an assessed value of $82 million in 2018 to $28 million last year. JCPenney and other outward facing storefronts including Floor & Décor, Sportsman Warehouse, Dave & Buster’s and IndyKart, remain open – and taxable.
Most of the mall property’s assessed value is in those remaining box stores, Henrietta town supervisor Stephen Schultz said, adding that new housing and commercial developments in town should more than make up for the lost property value.
Wilmorite closed the mall's interior at the end of last year, though Henrietta officials tried to save it. Henrietta Supervisor Steve Schultz said that while disappointed by the closure, he is “elated” by the prospect of the new state-of-the-art school with support, care and other services on site.
A phased construction plan shared with town officials has Mary Cariola Center first overhauling the space for a middle school. The next phase is an elementary school, and that mall space would remain vacant or be demolished until the center is ready to move forward, Schultz said. A possible third phase would add a high school. The center has the right of first refusal to the JCPenney property
“We are pleased to be adding Mary Cariola to our community,” he said, “and very excited about the possibilities that this comprehensive, new facility will bring to the lives of those who need or can benefit from their services.”
The investment in a new campus marks a significant shift from how disability education was treated in the mid 1980s, when Mary Cariola Center’s School Superintendent Christine Sheffer first started working in the field.
“I can tell you, my first classroom I ever taught in was in the basement next to a smoking lounge,” Sheffer said. “Our times have gotten better, our kids deserve better, and places like the Marketplace Mall will be the future for our students.”
