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Chillicothe R-2
Board Forms Building Committee It's no secret that the old three-story high school building on Calhoun Street needs to be razed. The structure is rapidly deteriorating, is aged, dangerous and a community concern, according to a list of the R-2 district's tentative long range building needs plan. In fact, tearing down the structure ranks among the top three of the 10 items listed in the plan, alongside the project involving connecting the middle school's east and west wings and, of course, giving the Grand River Technical School a much needed new roof. And while the board has been wrestling with the knowledge that these projects must be done sooner rather than later, no decision on just how they should be funded has emerged. To that end, the board had asked Superintendent Dale Wallace to contact the company currently tearing down the old Lambert Glove Factory on Monroe Street and ask for a tentative proposal on tearing down the structure. Wallace told board members that the estimate has come back at between $175,000 to $200,000. The razing would take six months from start to finish with the demolition work being conducted in the summer months. The superintendent explained that previous estimates on the project had come in much higher (at around $500,000) because those proposals involved simply razing the building and carting it's pieces off to a landfill. The company currently working on the glove factory, however, is salvaging as much as 95 percent of the material. Wallace noted that before any decision is made regarding the razing of the building, a plan needs to be in place showing how to replace the six rooms in that portion of the building currently being utilized by the middle school. Specifically, according to CMS Principal Bryan Prewitt, three classrooms and three offices are being used in the old portion of the building. To that end, the board asked Wallace to form a building committee designed to create such a plan and bring a recommendation back to the board. Members of the committee would be comprised of school administrators, community members and board members Randy Constant and Tom Chapman. |
