Central School demolition project expected to wrap up this fall

by Melissa Martin

June 16 city council meeting

Brecksville City Council voted unanimously to accept a bid made by ProQuality Demolition in Youngstown to tear down the former Central Elementary School.

According to Purchasing Director Monica Bartkiewicz, the city received 10 bids for the project, and ProQuality Demolition submitted the lowest bid at $683,000. By comparison, the highest bid came in at $1.1 million.

Bartkiewicz told council the city has applied for and received a grant for the project as part of , which will fund approximately $543,000 of the project, or up to 80% of the total cost of demolition. She added that demolition was expected to begin after the Home Days celebration in late June.

Mayor Daryl Kingston said the city estimates that demolition of the building and the grading of the site will take approximately two months to complete. The first step in the process, Service Director Joe Kickel explained, will be the removal of the asbestos in the building.

Once the asbestos is removed, Kingston said the city’s safety forces will use the building for “deconstructive training” to practice removing windows, doors and roofs.

“Those are some things they would normally never get a chance to do,” he said.

Even with demolition imminent, the city has yet to determine what will be done with the Central School property moving forward, according to Kingston.

The building has been vacant for the past eight years. The city obtained the 3.6-acre parcel and the house next door, plus 10.5 acres on Stadium Drive, from the Brecksville-Broadview Heights City School District as part of a land swap agreement. In exchange for the Central School site, the city traded 25 acres on the municipally owned Blossom Hill property on Oakes Road, where the new Brecksville-Broadview Heights Elementary School and community field house are now located.

Though there has been intermittent interest in redeveloping the site, no formal plans have been accepted, Kingston said.

“This is just an exercise to get the building down. There will be time for public input at the time we bring it forward,” he said. “At this time, the contractor is going to grade and seed the property when they are done and then, maybe over the next year or two, we’ll decide what to do with it, and we will engage the public when that time comes.”

Kingston said that if and when council decides to move forward with plans for the site, an entirely new bidding process is anticipated. With the building gone, he said, developers are more likely to submit redevelopment proposals.

“With that albatross gone off the property, it will be a whole new ball game,” Kingston said.

Councilperson Ann Koepke reminded council that the Brecksville Historical Association has started to retain approximately 600 bricks and a few of the former school’s sandstone relief panels, along with several school-related items from inside the building to keep and preserve or auction off to the community. She said the salvaged bricks and relief panels could be used by future site developers to recognize the property as an historic place that once housed Central School.

“We do care about the building, and we are taking what we can and what makes sense to take,” Koepke said.

Kingston noted that the BHA asked if the city could auction off some of the remaining items.

“There isn’t much left after eight years, but we’ve decided to auction some of these items on GovDeals, (an online auction site),” he said. “The proceeds from the auction could be donated to the Historical Association, but it will be up to council to decide what to do with that money.”

“The people [who worked] there loved the school, but it’s old,” Councilman Brian Stucky said at the June 18 meeting of council’s Buildings and Grounds Committee, immediately before council approved the contract. Stucky said some residents had hoped to preserve the building, which dates back to the early 1900s.

“It just cannot be fixed though,” he said. “Even when they were [working] there 20 years ago, it was not a building that could be renovated. Everybody hates seeing it go, even the teachers who were there. They loved it. But it’s time.”

Bartkiewicz told council the city has applied for and received a grant for the project as part of the Ohio Department of Development’s Building Demolition and Site Revitalization Program, which will fund approximately $543,000 of the project, or up to 80% of the total cost of demolition. She added that demolition was expected to begin after the Home Days celebration in late June.