The Riverview School in East Sandwich has purchased the conference center at the Cape Cod Irish Village. The school intends to add the building to a new campus planned for the abutting property in Hyannis.
The Hyport Conference Center is part of the Emerald Resort. The resort lodging — Cape Cod Irish Village — is not included in the $12.5 million sale.
The private boarding and day school serves teens and young adults with complex language, learning, and cognitive disabilities. The school wants to expand programming beyond age 21, so alumni can maintain the friendships and community they have come to know, said Stewart Miller, executive director of Riverview.
“The donors want to make sure that when Riverview students are 30 years old, and 50 years old, and when their parents aren't alive anymore and they shut their eyes at night, they know they're members of a valued community and have friends,” he said.
The conference center’s approximately six-acre property abuts a 40-acre golf course, Twin Brooks, which the school bought earlier this year.
By using the conference center for programming, Riverview will have more flexibility with the rest of the land.
“It changed the direction of our thinking,” Miller said.
As part of the new campus, Riverview plans to build walking trails, a farmstand and general store, and other spaces open to the public. The Hyannis program, called Friends Forever, will strive for community integration.
“What we don't want to do is to create this island of isolation,” he said. “And we want to not just have the community be a place that we bring our students to, but we want to have more integration and invite the community in.”
The school is working on a plan with the Barnstable Land Trust and the owner of the Irish Village, and will seek input from the town, the Cape Cod Commission, and the community group Save Twin Brooks.
For now, the conference center can continue to operate as usual, Miller said.
Save Twin Brooks fought a previous plan by a housing developer to build 312 apartments on the former golf course.
Construction for the new Riverview campus is probably a couple of years away, Miller said. But in the meantime, the school can start holding events in the conference center when the building isn’t occupied.
Riverview’s first event at the conference center is a reception and sing-along this Sunday.
The open-house-style event runs from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Music starts at 2:30, featuring Riverview students and alumni.
“We're looking forward to that — that first celebration with the Hyannis community,” he said.