Anova Center for Education breaks ground 6 years after Tubbs Fire destroyed the school

On the sixth anniversary of the Tubbs Fire, construction teams leveled out dirt on an empty lot across from the county airport in north Santa Rosa.

They were clearing out a plot of land that had been donated to the Anova Center for Education, a K-12 school that was destroyed by the historic fire.

But more importantly, they were helping a dream start to become a reality.

The school — which serves students with high-functioning autism — is the only school destroyed in the fire that has yet to be rebuilt.

But that is about to change.

“We lost everything — every little apple a teacher got from some kid that a parent gave to them 30 years ago, all the computers, all the books — everything in the entire school was gone, and there was nothing spared,” said Anova CEO and founder Andrew Bailey.

In the years since, nearly 150 Anova students have been learning in portable classrooms in a parking lot of Luther Burbank Center across from where their school once stood.

But now, less than a five-minute drive away, construction crews are paving a three-acre parcel west of Highway 101. Anova purchased the property from Santa Rosa Airport Business Center for $2.5 million less than its asking price, but did not have the money to develop it.

“It's one thing to have the land, and it's another thing to put a building on it,” Bailey said.

Over the past six years, Anova has been able to crowdfund nearly $10 million of the estimated $26.7 million cost to build the new school, which will include two 20,000 square-foot classroom buildings, outdoor pavilions, a garden and a sensory playground.

But that still wasn’t enough to start construction.

Enter Sonoma County developers Cindy and Bill Gallaher of Gallaher Companies, who were major players in building the Roseland Boys & Girls Club and rescuing Athena House, a woman’s shelter that nearly shut down last year.

“During (a) meeting with (Anova Board Chairman) Rick Herbert and Andrew, they both were thinking the actual construction would be five years in the future — we felt with the work that had already been done on their plans, that construction could start almost immediately,” Cindy Gallaher said in an emailed statement.

Bill Gallaher, who is the chairman of Poppy Bank, was able to set up a near $15 million construction loan with an interest rate of 4.5%, to be paid off in 15 years.

A loan of that size typically comes with a fee charged to the borrower — akin to a down payment on a home — but the Gallahers have reduced the fee to just 1% of the total loan and gifted that money directly back to Anova.

“Bill and I don’t personally have any experience with autism but are aware of how important an appropriate environment is to autistic kids,” Cindy Gallaher said. “We also believe, that like any group of people, the physical plant they are housed and educated in sends a message from the greater community about how they are valued — or not.”

The windfall means Bailey did not have to take any money out of Anova’s saved funds to accept the offer.

“Our mission goes from raising money to break ground to raising money to retire a loan,” Bailey said.

The collaboration between Gallaher Companies and Anova also lowered the project total cost. Gallaher Companies is donating project management, architecture, design and landscaping.

What was estimated to cost nearly $27 million, will now be closer to $20 million, Cindy Gallaher said.

Bailey hopes the additional funding needed for the project will trickle in once the community sees the building come to life.

On a recent morning, he was finally able to see the project go “from a dream to a reality,” as he watched a group of RCX construction workers finishing the first phase of the project.

Shaun Olivarez, the foreman for RCX Inc., is responsible for the team clearing out the lot. Under light rain, his crew finished preparing the two dirt lots for the concrete to be poured over by the next team of construction workers.

He and Bailey both noted how quickly construction has gotten underway.

“The concrete (group) will be running in here after us,” Olivarez said, while standing next to Bailey, looking at the empty lots.

“Even within the next week, this is going to look completely different,” Bailey responded.

If construction goes smoothly, Anova students will transition to the new location for the 2024-25 school year.

“I can’t imagine that anyone is anything less than thrilled about this,” Bailey said. “(Teachers) are going to be working with kids who finally have a school and can finally feel good about where they are … They can be in a beautiful campus, in a great neighborhood, supported by the people in this community.”

Report For America corps member Adriana Gutierrez covers education and child welfare issues for The Press Democrat. Reach her at adriana.gutierrez@pressdemocrat.com