With Foothill College now completing its departure from Cubberley Community Center, Palo Alto is preparing to welcome a fresh class of nonprofit groups, studios and educational programs into the sprawling center on the city's southern edge.

The most prominent new tenant will be Avenidas, the city's most prominent service provider of senior services. The nonprofit is undertaking a major renovation and expansion of its present headquarters in the Birge Clark-designed building on Bryant Street and plans to occupy Cubberley during the construction period.

The other 16 tenants that will occupy the roughly 18,000 square feet of space that is being vacated by Foothill are an eclectic mix of nonprofits, faith-based groups and education businesses. The new tenants include the REACH Program, a nonprofit that serves stroke survivors; Genius Kids, an educational program aimed at awakening the "inner genius" in each participating child; and California Pops, a nonprofit that conducts presentations of orchestral music. There is Cardiac Therapy, which provides cardiac rehabilitation services, and Art of Living Foundation, which offers yoga and meditation programs. Ranger Taekwondo is a new tenant; so is Silicon Valley Karate.

Other tenants are: Acme Education, Brainvyne, Chinese for Christ Church, Dance Connection, Imagination School, Ivy Goal Education, Living Wisdom, Melody Music, Palo Alto Humane Society and Palo Alto Soccer Club.

To accommodate these tenants, the council on Monday night agreed to the 1991 "master plan" governing Cubberley, which is jointly owned by the city and the Palo Alto Unified School District. With the changes, buildings that were designated exclusively for education (and, in one case, for administrative use) will now be allowed to accommodate nonprofits, community organizations and recreational and child-care uses.

In addition, the council agreed to give Avenidas a discounted rate for the roughly 10,000 square feet it will be occupying. While nonprofits are typically charged $1.31 per square foot for Cubberley space, Avenidas will only have to pay $1 per square foot.

In approving the discount for Avenidas, the council generally agreed that the nonprofit has a unique status because it offers essential services for seniors that, in its absence, the city would have to provide on its own. Under the longstanding agreement between the city and Avenidas, the nonprofit pays no rent for its existing facility on Bryant Street.

Lisa Hendrickson, former CEO of Avenidas who is leading the capital campaign, told the council that even with the discount, the rent payments present a challenge for the nonprofit.

"The rental expense, while not a big number, is an incremental cost for operations and one for which we'll have to fundraise," Hendrickson said. "Especially at a time when we're asking the community for a lot of money: $13 million for a new building."

The council agreed that the nonprofit deserves the city's help, though not everyone was equally thrilled about the discounted rate. Councilwoman Karen Holman wondered why Avenidas is getting preferential treatment over other valuable nonprofits, which pay regular rent. She pointed, as an example, to Friends of the Palo Alto Library, a nonprofit that is also located at Cubberley and that donates about $250,000 annually to the city's library system. Why, Holman asked, isn't the Friends group getting the $1-per-square-foot rate?

"Avenidas provides great services for the community, but show me one of these groups that doesn't," Holman said.

Councilwoman Liz Kniss countered that Avenidas offers something "truly unique" to the community, while Councilman Cory Wolbach called its contribution's "critically important." Ultimately, the council voted unanimously to give Avenidas the discounted rate.

While the new lease agreements solve the immediate problem of Foothill's departure by allowing the city and the school district to continue collecting rent revenue, the long-term future of the 35-acre community center remains undetermined.

In December 2014, the city (which owns 8 acres) and the school district (which owns the remaining 27 acres) signed a new five-year lease agreement that commits the parties to jointly plan the future of the center. Both parties see it as a critical asset, with the school district considering it a potential site of a future school (Cubberley once housed the city's third high school), and the city looking to create a fresh mix of community-serving functions and amenities.

Both parties also agree that the community center is in urgent need of repair, with the city committing $1.8 million annually into an infrastructure fund to pay for the needed improvements (before 2014, the city paid this sum to the school district as part of a covenant not to develop; the new agreement scrapped the covenant).

On other aspects, there is no clear consensus. In March 2013, a stakeholders committee conducted a thorough assessment of Cubberley and released a report calling for the city and the school board to jointly fund a "master plan" for the center. While both sides have conceptually embraced the committee's recommendation, the broad planning effort has yet to get off the ground.

On Monday, staff from the Community Services Department assured the council that the new agreement will not preclude any long-term options for Cubberley. All new leases are short-term in nature, with terms ranging from three years to the time when the city's lease with the school district expires.

Even so, several members of the Cubberley Advisory Committee urged the council not to lose sight of the long-term goal: improving Cubberley and making it work better for both the school district and the city.

Diane Reklis, a former school board member who served on the advisory committee, requested that the council proceed with more urgency on the type of "needs assessment" for Cubberley that her committee had recommended. The analysis, she said, is needed for both sides to make the best use of Cubberley.

"Our conclusion was that we didn't have to choose," Reklis said. "We can build a thoroughly modern community center at Cubberley and, when the time is right, we can build a school -- a full-sized school. ... This can only happen if we work together and plan together."