As the Fort Wayne Urban League prepares to open the city’s fourth taxpayer-supported charter school, a familiar name has surfaced as a possible landlord.

Entertainment Properties Trust owns the properties leased to the two Imagine Schools in Fort Wayne. The company reported more then $84 million in profits last year, from a portfolio with an increasing share of charter school real estate holdings.

While the Urban League charter school board might be eager to settle in a building before the school’s Aug. 19 opening, members should be cautious. Scarce dollars should be aimed at student instruction instead of buildings. Imagine MASTer Academy alone pays $790,000 a year in rent to its management company and, in turn, to Entertainment Properties Trust. It’s a poor deal for students and taxpayers.

Costly lease payments place the state’s four Imagine Schools in the lower ranks for percentage of spending on instruction. Imagine Life Sciences Academy East in Indianapolis spent less than 40 percent of its budget on classroom costs in 2010, compared to the 71 percent Fort Wayne Community Schools spent on instruction. Imagine MASTer Academy spent just 53.6 percent of its budget in the classroom, compared to 65.3 percent at East Allen County Schools.

Will Clark, president of the Thurgood Marshall Academy board, said that American Quality Schools, the education management company that will operate the new school, identified HighMark School Development as a potential partner in developing the school. At a board meeting Monday, a HighMark representative revealed that Entertainment Properties Trust is its majority investor.

It’s no surprise that Entertainment Properties Trust emerged as a potential investor to buy, renovate and lease the former Village Woods Middle School for use as the K-6 Thurgood Marshall Academy.

“We don’t find a lot of competition right now, and we like that,” David Brain, chief executive officer of Entertainment Properties Trust, told Bloomberg Businessweek earlier this month. “We’ll be ahead of the curve when other people finally wake up to the idea and come to the party.”

Brain’s eager embrace of charter school investment should serve as a warning sign for well-intentioned board volunteers eager to offer school choice at taxpayers’ expense. The charter school deals are “long-term, triple-net leases that deflect the costs of maintenance, property taxes and insurance off the landlord and onto the tenant,” writes Tierney Plumb at the Motley Fool website. The tenant, of course, is the Indiana taxpayer, whose income and sales taxes now cover 100 percent of school general fund costs – including charter school costs.

Clark said the Urban League board has “quite an arms-length relationship” with American Quality Schools and that spending is a concern.

“Every dollar you spend on buildings is money you can’t spend on education, and improvements in education are what we’re looking for,” he said.

That’s good news, but holding to that goal as experienced charter school investors push for a contract will be the real test of commitment.