Tech may be home to NSCC programs

LYNN – Lynn Vocational Technical Institute is emerging as a possible location for North Shore Community College’s culinary arts and cosmetology programs three months after a plan to house the programs on Union Street fell through, a college official said Friday.A scenario under discussion between school and college officials potentially involves relocating an adult education program for Connery and Harrington school parents from Tech to the J.B. Blood building located several blocks away from Tech’s Neptune Boulevard address.School Committee members will discuss the Blood building as an adult education site on Thursday night, said committee secretary Thomas Iarrobino, and review other considerations related to using space in the building for a public school program, including a prospective lease arrangement with the Economic Development and Industrial Corporation, the building’s owner.EDIC Executive Director James Cowdell said he has shown the third and fourth floor to school officials twice in the last 60 days.”I know there is interest but we have not gotten to the point where we are negotiating anything,” he said.College spokeswoman Linda Brantley on Friday confirmed North Shore’s interest in Tech as a possible site for the culinary and cosmetology programs.”A group from NSCC has been exploring potential options, both short and long term, to house one or both of the (programs) and one of those options is Lynn’s Vocational School,” Brantley stated in an email.The college scrapped a plan to have 100 culinary and 40 cosmetology students start classes in January in the former Eastern Bank building at Silsbee and Union streets when financing fell through.College President Patricia Gentile earlier this month outlined North Shore’s space shortage for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Rep. John Tierney, explaining to the pair how college administrators are “trying to figure out how to squeeze in our culinary program.””I have waiting lists of people who want to get in,” Gentile told them.No final decision on using Tech or another location as a site for the two programs has been made, Brantley stressed in her email.”The college is very grateful that the Lynn School District has been so gracious and interested in helping us to address our space issues,” she wrote.