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Demo begins on old high school
By ED RUNYAN
WARREN
Workers on Monday began the demolition of the former Warren Western Reserve High School, though it was only interior demolition and limited by a water-main break.
Forty-five days of asbestos abatement already are done.
Bill Hayes, a demolition superviser for Carbone-Ozanne-Hammond, said Monday that exterior demolition will begin next week, possibly Monday.
Hayes said COH’s contract requires it to have the demolition complete within 60 days after the power and water are shut off, and he expects workers to need every one of those 60 days to complete the job.
Hayes said the power was shut off Monday, but Warren Water Department workers were unable to shut off the water because of a water-main break that required their attention elsewhere in the city. The water shut-off will most likely occur today, Hayes said.
Instead of starting on the “combustible” parts of the interior demolition Monday — removal of items such as door jambs and cupboards — workers from C. Tucker Cope and Associates of Columbiana removed ceiling tiles, Hayes said.
Aaron Schwab, the school district’s communications coordinator, said Reserve is one of the last two of the district’s 19 former school buildings on the demolition list. The others have already been removed.
The district’s two newest buildings — Jefferson K-8 on Fifth Street Southwest and McGuffey K-8 on Tod Avenue Northwest — are finished and will be ready for students to use on the first day of school, Sept. 7, Schwab said.
Next door to Reserve, on Loveless Avenue Southwest, the former Alden Elementary School was recently removed, leaving only Reserve in an area that once contained two schools and the Westlawn apartments.
Westlawn was bulldozed nearly 10 years ago, leaving behind only the streets and street signs in an expanse of tall grass surrounded by some one of the most impoverished residential areas of the city.
The Rev. George A. Johnson Sr., pastor at Agape Assembly, a 6-year-old church built on the edge of the former Westlawn property, says removal of Reserve will allow the city to move forward with redevelopment.
“I believe once that [Reserve] is gone, it can be developed into something useful. This is just another step in the right direction,” Johnson said, adding that former Mayor Hank Angelo and his service director, Fred Harris, encouraged him to start the church as a way to improve the neighborhood.
The church’s six-week youth recreational program that ended last week and the church’s after-school computer lab are examples of the positive changes the church is making to the neighborhood, Johnson said.
Mayor Michael O’Brien said the city and school district have talked about combining the former Westlawn property, which the city owns with the land from Alden and Reserve, and marketing it for business use, possibly light industrial.
He noted that the neighborhood has waterlines and oversized storm sewers and is close to the factory that Warren Harding graduate Mark Marvin is building on West Market Street for his company, Reinforcement Systems of Ohio.
Meanwhile, Reserve graduate Mark Clawges is among a group of people planning a gathering at 10 a.m. Thursday at Reserve to say one more goodbye.
“You can take our building, but you can’t take our West Side pride,” Clawges said of the rallying cry of West Siders who attended Reserve from 1967 to 1989 — the 22 years it was used as a high school.
“We want people to know that the people who went through this West Side building are still here, and the memories will always be here until we’re gone.”