Disputes between BridgeValley Community and Technical College and its landlord are nothing new. For years, previous presidents fought to either not pay for space at the West Virginia Regional Technology Park or pay a lower price.
Joseph L. Badgley, the former president of a community college that merged with another to become BridgeValley, said he pushed the school to take up residence at the Tech Park in South Charleston because he thought the school would own the building and wouldn't need to pay any rent.
Now, BridgeValley could be evicted from the Tech Park for not paying almost two years worth of rent. Lawyers for the Tech Park asked the school to pay more than $1.8 million for unpaid fees by June 7. Without full payment, the Tech Park plans to evict the school and start looking for a new tenant.
Representatives from the Tech Park and BridgeValley would not comment Thursday on the rent dispute.
Before there was BridgeValley, there was Kanawha Valley Community and Technical College, where Badgley was the president, and Bridgemont Community and Technical College. The first was linked to West Virginia State University and the latter to the West Virginia Institute of Technology.
Lawmakers decided to split up the state's two-year colleges in 2008, and a handful of colleges, including Kanawha Valley, were later given $15 million to find new buildings in which to operate, according to Badgley.
Two years later, Dow Chemical donated the Tech Park to the state and the Higher Education Policy Commission took control of it.
Badgley said the HEPC chancellor at the time, Brian Noland, approached him with an idea for Kanawha Valley CTC to move into the new space. Badgley figured the school could have spent the $15 million to build a new school or to renovate Building 2000 at the Tech Park and have extra space to grow.
"Had anyone said to me, or indicated to me in any way before we made the decision, that, after investing $15 million, we were going to have to pay rent and service fees, I would have never, ever, ever agreed to go there," Badgley said. "I would have never burdened the future president and the board of governors with that. We would have taken the money, gone somewhere, bought some property and built a smaller school."
Badgley said he remembers waiting outside the House of Delegates' Finance Committee room years ago when Noland offered up space at the Tech Park. By Badgley's account, Noland promised that Kanawha Valley CTC could have space at the Tech Park for free - no rent, no service fee, nothing - if it renovated the building.
The school packed up and moved to South Charleston, investing that $15 million into renovating the building. Badgley encouraged that move without ever receiving any official notice of Noland's supposed offer - no emails, no contracts, no tangible proof of the conversation.
When reached by phone Thursday, Noland said the conversation never happened. Noland left the HEPC at the end of 2011 to become the president of East Tennessee State University, right as Kanawha Valley CTC was in the middle of renovations.
"I can guarantee you I was never in a conversation where I told someone they didn't have to pay rent or utilities," Noland said. "The commission would have gone ballistic, the governor would have laughed me out of the room. There's no way. Somebody has got to pay."
With Noland in Tennessee, Kanawha Valley sunk its money into renovating Building 2000 and moved to the building in 2012. The HEPC had appointed a board of directors to oversee the daily operations of the park, and Phil Halstead was named the park's executive director.
After Kanawha Valley CTC was settled in, Badgley said, Halstead sent him a bill for about $1 million to use the space. Badgley said he never paid up. He said he kept insisting that, because of Noland's promise, he shouldn't have to pay.
Halstead would not comment for this report.
Mary Annie, who worked for the Tech Park at the time, said she negotiated for months with Badgley to reach an agreement. Annie said Badgley never brought up Noland's supposed promise.
Kanawha Valley CTC and Bridgemont CTC eventually combined to form one large institution, BridgeValley. But before Badgley retired, he told the newly combined school's new president, Beverly Jo Harris, that the school wouldn't have to pay any rent.
After Harris was hired, she signed several lease agreements to pay to use the space. The last active lease the school had signed covered from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2015.
The lease was signed in May and June of 2015 - retroactively covering the year prior.
Harris spent months going back and forth with the Tech Park's new executive director, Russell Kruzelock, to reach a new agreement after that one ended, according to emails obtained by the Gazette-Mail under the Freedom of Information Act. The Tech Park originally wanted a 6.25 percent increase.
The school's governing board wanted to pay $4.83 per square foot, Harris' emails show. The Tech Park countered with two proposed lease agreements - in a three-year lease, the school could pay about $8.50 per square foot, and in a five-year lease, the school could pay about $8 per square foot.
In a recent survey of Class A properties in downtown Charleston, the average cost per square foot was about $20.
"We needed to continue negotiations," Harris said Thursday when reached by phone. "It was not finalized while I was there. I was trying to get the best agreement we could for the Tech Park and for the institution."
They never reached an agreement and Harris retired in June 2016. After Eunice Bellinger was hired to lead the school, Kruzelock sent her a proposed 25-year lease agreement, which included the cost of utilities. Under that agreement the cost per square foot would rise 3 percent each year.
BridgeValley's board of governors is scheduled to meet again on June 9.
HEPC Chancellor Paul Hill, who is an ex-officio member of the Tech Park's board of directors, would not say if the school should be evicted on June 7 if it doesn't pay the $1.8 million, according to a statement from his spokeswoman.
"Negotiations between the Tech Park and BridgeValley are pending legal review," Hill said in the statement. "As such, I am not able to offer comment at this time."
Reach Jake Jarvis at jake.jarvis@wvgazettemail.com, Facebook.com/newsroomjake, 304-348-7939 or follow @NewsroomJake on Twitter.