Lakeview schools shutter building

The Ohio School Facilities Commission says the $1 million building demolition would include $800,000 for asbestos removal.

CORTLAND — For the first time in 132 years, there will be no students attending school this fall at the building on Park Avenue known first as Cortland High School and most recently as Cortland Elementary.

In a cost-cutting move, the Lakeview school board closed the building, which last year housed grades 3 through 5, and consolidated classes into its three other buildings.

The building’s future is uncertain, but the most likely scenario is for it to go up for auction this fall, said Robert Wilson, Lake-view superintendent.

By law, the school district had to offer the building for sale first to any private schools in the district, but there are none, Wilson said.

A couple of weeks ago, Mayor Curt Moll of Cortland toured the building with Don Wittman, city service director, because the city had thoughts of buying the building and converting it into a community center, senior center or artist studios similar to the Ward Bakery Building on Mahoning Avenue in Youngstown.

But Moll said the city is unlikely to follow through on that idea because the building, which has been enlarged several times, “wasn’t made to be anything but a school,” he said. Even using newer sections of the building would be difficult.

The newest section, added in 1995 — a new kitchen, cafeteria/all-purpose room — is heated by boilers in a separate part of the building.

The restrooms in another newer section of the building are also inadequate, and that section doesn’t have its own heating system either, Moll said.

Moll estimates that tearing down the building would cost between $500,000 and $1 million.

Wilson said the estimate he uses — $1 million — was generated by the Ohio School Facilities Commission, which estimates that $800,000 of the $1 million would be for removing asbestos.

The asbestos has been encapsulated, Wilson said, meaning it has been rendered safe by being wrapped or covered.

“You can sell it [the building] like it is, but if you demolish it, that’s where it gets difficult,” Wilson said.

He added that if the city declines to buy the building, he will approach the county to see if it has any interest.

No auction would be necessary to sell the building to a government entity, Wilson said.

To sell the building to a private entity would require an auction, Wilson said.

The district has been talking with the school facilities commission in order to do some long-range planning so that the school administration can provide the school board with options for future use of its facilities, Wilson said.

The school district expects to be eligible for school-facilities commission money by late spring 2010, Wilson said.

At that point, the district is likely to qualify for about 35 percent funding.

Local taxpayers would have to pay the other 65 percent, he said.

The district owns 33 acres across from the entrance to Mosquito Lake State Park on state Route 305 that could be used for a future construction project, Wilson said.

That location is central to the whole school district, he said.

At some point, building a new facility might be cheaper than maintaining the current ones, he said.

The current high school was built in 1961.

runyan@vindy.com