Oklahoma School Needs New Use
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Jan. 8, 2009
The art moderne Chandler Memorial High School is listed on the National Register of Historic places but is not protected by local laws.
Credit: Shellee Graham, Route 66 Photographs.com
A vacant school in Chandler, Okla., located 40 miles east of Oklahoma City on Route 66, needs a new roof and a new owner.
Chandler Memorial High School, a Works Public Administration project built in the 1930s, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The local school board may soon scuttle the school as "surplus property," which means it can sell the moderne structure to anyone who wants to redevelop the site.
Last month, the school board voted to consider declaring the Chandler School surplus property. Although the final vote has not yet been placed on the agenda for future meetings, local preservationists are concerned because Chandler has no local laws to protect any of its 19 National Register-listed properties, including the school. (School board president Don Gray did not return phone calls.)
The 22,800-square-foot building is structurally sound and in "remarkably good shape" except for its roof, which was "in extreme disrepair," according to an architectural study done in 2005. It needs a sprinkler system to bring it up to code.
Some would like to see the school converted to rental apartments or a hotel. "I'd love to live in it. Who wouldn't?" says Sally Ferrell, a former advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "I'm seeing all this rehabilitation going on in Oklahoma City, and we are very short on housing and rooms to let here in Chandler."
Or the building could become a school again, City Manager James Melson said in an e-mail. "I think it would be good to offer adult technical college courses and use the old building for classrooms."
Order "A Community Guide to Saving Older Schools" from PreservationBooks.org
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Comments
Submitted by Clay in OKC at: January 29, 2009
Chandler's Armory was recently converted into a Route 66 Interpretive Center. Chickasha OK has a building on its county fairgrounds that was recently saved and reroofed with a metal roof. The roof conversion is pretty ugly but at least they saved the building.
Submitted by jim at: January 11, 2009
http://mainstreetmoments.com/ We are looking for help in repairing the steeple on the historic Congregational Church in Turton, South Dakota. Chec our web site.