Failing report card for West Ward

It would cost about $2.2 million to renovate and update the former West Ward Elementary building in McCook into a useable facility for city offices, the police station and fire department.

A new-construction municipal building is estimated to cost $1.9 million.

And in making necessary repairs, updates and changes to the West Ward building, the historical value of the structure could be compromised.

West Ward has been vacant since May 2003, and the City of McCook purchased the school building and the city block it sits on in January 2008. The city bought the property for the land and city officials ultimately decided to build a new city office building, police station and fire department on it, said McCook City Manager Kurt Fritsch. Fritsch recently explained an in-depth feasibility study that researched the potential of updating, adapting and repurposing the 84-year-old two-story brick building.

The process of applying for a $629,700 federal "neighborhood stabilization" grant that could be used to demolish the West Ward school building required that the city conduct the feasibility study because of the possible impact on a historic property.

On May 15, 2009, the city submitted its list of properties proposed for demolition to the Nebraska State Historical Society in Lincoln for review and comment, and in July, the society's L. Robert Puschendorf recommended that the city consider adaptively reusing the school building.

Jill Dolberg, the review and compliance coordinator of the Preservation Office of the state historical society, said that, in general, schools are eligible for the National Registry of Historic Places because of the important role they play in molding children into citizens. "We'd have to look for reasons for a school not to be included in the National Registry," she said.

Dolberg admitted that she had only seen pictures of the West Ward building when she said in September that it appears that West Ward is "close to its original design. It has nice architecture, and newer windows do not impact the story it has to tell."

The mission of the NSHS's preservation division, Dolberg said, is to advocate for historic buildings. "It's not our intention to stop a project. We're not a road block," she said. "We want to fully investigate all options," and, if appropriate, find a way to continue to use a building, and in the case of West Ward, as an addition for the fire department, police station and administration offices.

Dolberg said in late September, "We'll have to see what the feasibility study says."

The feasibility study conducted by Miller and Associates of Kearney has been forwarded to the state historical society, and Fritsch said the city is waiting for a response. The city has until Saturday, Oct. 31, to reach an agreement with historical society officials.

Missing that deadline does not mean the building will not be torn down, Fritsch said. "We just won't be able to use the neighborhood stabilization grant funds," he said.

The original rectangle of West Ward Elementary was completed in 1925. An addition of four rooms on both floors on the west in the early 1960s meant the school building covered 14,250 square feet. The last students left the school in May 2003.

School board members had declared the West Ward building salvage in January 2003, a year after deciding to send all pre-kindergarten and K-3 students to the East and North Ward elementary buildings and to eliminate West Ward, an aging building on which they could not justify spending money for updates and renovations. While school board members contemplated the fate of the community's three neighborhood elementary schools, McCook engineer Greg Wolf studied West Ward for the school district. He concluded that the building was no longer meeting the needs of students and faculty.

With an eye on a single-site elementary facility, school board members eventually also eliminated East Ward, and fused the North Ward building with a new addition to house all of the community's public elementary students. The new and expanded "McCook Elementary" opened in the fall of 2005.

The school board sold the West Ward property to D. Jon Morrison of Las Vegas who wanted to create a convention center. When financing for the project didn't materialize and a sale to Red Willow County fell through, Morrison sold the property to a Colorado man who purchased it as a "flip property," wanting to renovate it and resell it at a profit. That fell apart before any repairs could be made or renovations started, and ownership reverted to Morrison. The city bought the property from Morrison in early 2008 for $100,000.

At that point, the building had been vacant for five years.

The years and Nebraska weather have not been kind to the West Ward building. The recent Miller and Associates study states, "There has ... been a lack of maintenance in the building which has lead to the deterioration of the facility over the past few decades."

Kurt Fritsch asks, "If the building wasn't good enough for our students and our teachers, why is it good enough for our city staff?"

Fritsch admits that the school building "doesn't look terrible from the outside." However, it's a different story inside.

On a rainy day recently, water dripped through the roof, the second story ceiling and floor and first story ceiling onto the warped hardwood floor of the kindergarten class on the ground floor. Huge chunks of plaster lay in piles in almost all of the classrooms, having dropped from the ceiling after past rains and melting snowfalls. The metal screen over which plaster was applied rusts in dark, gaping holes gouged in classroom walls.

Acoustic panels in the addition's drop ceilings have fallen onto asbestos floor tiles.

Carpeting is wet and wrinkly, and musty smelling.

Windows are broken and boarded up. Glass panels in bookcases are broken in jagged spikes or are missing completely.

Do not touch what appears to be an abstract painting of wonderful swirls of blues and greens hanging on the wall. That's mold growing on an old brown cork-board. The furry, fuzzy brown patch creeping along the floor isn't a mouse or a squirrel. That's mold too.

The feasibility study estimates repairs and renovation to cost $2,251,000:

-- Interior demolition, $30,000

-- Asbestos and mold remediation. $60,000

-- Exterior windows and doors,$56,000

Opinion of probable adaptive reuse cost, $2,066,000

Total opinion of probable construction cost, $2,251,000

With a new front entrance on the west, the addition of an elevator and a garage and the blending of new construction, Fritsch said, historical architectural features of the West Ward building may be compromised or eliminated.

City officials estimate the cost of a new 16,500-square-foot municipal building to be $1,892,000, which includes site-work and demolition costs, contingency and design fees.

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Fritsch acknowledges former students' and teachers' sentimentality for their school. He isn't opposed to people being allowed to purchase a brick or something meaningful from the school before demolition.

It's possible the city could auction off architectural salvage.

Fritsch said the school's bricks could be used to build "Welcome to McCook" entrance signs on Highways 6&34 and 83.

And, Fritsch said, the concrete slabs into which "West Ward Elementary" and "1925" are engraved could be incorporated into a memorial on the site of the new municipal buildings -- a memorial reading something like, "This facility is dedicated to the memory of all the students, teachers, staff and administrators who learned at, worked at and loved West Ward Elementary, 1925-2003."

'Heritage tourism'

could create jobs,

bring in new money

Dale Cotton, a McCook man dedicated to preserving what remains of the World War II Army Air Base north of McCook, says the preservation of West Ward Elementary could add to McCook's "heritage tourism" possibilities.

Cotton feels the former school could be a tourist attraction along with the Air Base, the George W. Norris House, the swimming pool bathhouse (a 1937 Great Depression WPA project), the Norris Park bandshell, the Museum of the High Plains and the historic Carnegie Library.

Cotton said that heritage tourism can create full- and/or part-time jobs as well as attract tourists to motels, eating establishments and stores. He said jobs could include bus drivers for tours of attractions, publishing of tourism brochures and on-site caretakers for the Air Base and Norris House.