Threatened: Arizona School
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Mar. 12, 2010
The city of Peoria, Ariz., named a Preserve America community this month, may lose one of its oldest buildings, a historic 1922 school.
The Peoria Unified School District, which owns the school known as Old Main, is considering demolishing the structure. It has already torn down a gym and administration building on its grounds.
The 50,000-square-foot Spanish Mission-style building was designed by the Arizona architecture firm Lescher & Mahoney. It has been vacant for a year and a half and needs a new roof and other repairs.
"It has deteriorated, but some of that has to do with the school district not taking care of it," says Eva Osuna, an Old Main graduate who served on a committee to save the gym three years ago. "All these years we paid taxes—they should have gone to keeping that building up. It's not in its best condition, but we don't want it torn down. It's just too important of a building."
During World War II, Old Main was the only school in Arizona that enrolled Japanese-American students. It was among the first schools in the state to integrate.
Later this month, the recently formed Old Main Committee will present the school district with a plan for viable use of the school as offices and classrooms.
"The building is stable. The exterior is fine; it's beautiful," says committee chair Vicki Hunt, who is also a city councilwoman. "A lot of my constituents care a lot about it." Her committee suggests using $3 million in approved bond money earmarked for Old Main to repair and retrofit the building for mixed uses. "We are giving them a whole bunch of choices," Hunt says.
The school district estimates "stabilization" will cost between $650,000 and $1.7 million, according to notes from its meeting last May.
The city's Preserve America designation makes it eligible for grants from that federal program, which is facing drastic budget cuts, along with Save America's Treasures. Read more
The five-member board of the school district will consider the committee's reuse plan at the Mar. 25 meeting. According to a school district employee, "they have not chosen that [demolition] course yet." Superintendent Denton Santarelli did not respond to requests for comment.
Old Main is not Arizona's only endangered historic school. "While we've seen excellent examples of adaptive reuse of historic schools completed, such as in downtown Phoenix and Ajo, we're worried about others," Jim McPherson, a member of the board of directors of the Arizona Preservation Foundation, said in an e-mail. "The state historic preservation office and state school facilities board are now working together to document our remaining historic schools across Arizona as an important first step to protection."
Read about Arizona's plan to close half its state parks
For more photos, stories, and tips, subscribe to the print edition of Preservation magazine.
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Comments
Submitted by cloudfiller at: March 24, 2010
Check out the success in the Portland, OR area of the McMenamin brothers. They have taken old schools, hotels, a poor farm and a jail and turned them into viable businesses. Someone should use their examples in the reuse of Old Main.
Submitted by Ken Carroll at: March 14, 2010
The $3 million that Councilmember Vicki Hunt is talking about is a third of the money that was originally allocated to refurbish Old Main. The voters had authorized $10 million to be used, however the school district (PUSD) has re-allocated the lion's share of that money for other uses. Between the lack of help shown by the Peoria Arizona Historical Society (PAHS) and the reckless disregard for the upkeep of Old Main, I can't think of a case that is more embarrassing of an historical building being mishandled and neglected. Both PAHS and PUSD should hang their heads in shame!
Submitted by Tom at: March 13, 2010
The school is "Peoria High School". Old main is one of the buildings on the campus.
Submitted by Rat at: March 13, 2010
What's really embarrassing our group approached The Peoria Historical Society for funding and they pretty much blew us off. As a matter of fact, Eva that's commenting on this site, is a board member for the Historical Society and she raised some red flags to block us from getting their support. SHAMEFUL!! Anyway, the historical Society should be shoutting from the tops of roofs to make themselves be heard.