Good Question
It's still uncertain whether five elementary schools in the Butler School District will close at the end of the school year, but if they do, many people wonder about the fate of those buildings.
School board members are on the brink of a major district consolidation that could close Broad Street, Center Avenue, Clearfield, Meridian and Oakland elementary schools, while also reconfiguring grades.
The board will take a final vote on the proposed plan, which is estimated to save the district $3.5 million, in May.
However, this is not the first time the district has closed elementary schools to reflect declining student enrollments and to cut costs.The district closed a half dozen schools between 1976 and 1989: Bon Aire, East Butler, Homeacre, Institute Hill, Lyndora and West End elementary schools.Most of those former school buildings still are standing and have been repurposed for various uses, from apartments, to offices and preschool classrooms.
West End School on West New Castle Street in Butler closed in 1984.According to a Butler Eagle article from that year, about 170 students attended the school, and school board members estimated saving about $75,000 in annual costs by closing it. Enrollment had been declining at several schools.West End students were sent to Emily Brittain and Lyndora elementary schools.Since 1989, the former school building has been the warehouse and offices for Cunningham Shanor, which provides heating, air conditioning, plumbing and other household services. There are also 11 apartments there.Most aspects of the educational institution it once was are gone: Slate chalkboards and desks were sold. The original boiler was removed. Cabinets and glass blocks in windows were removed.Office areas were added, and kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms and walls were added to create apartments.However, a few remnants of the school remain.In a storage area that was the gymnasium, basketball boundaries are still visible on the floor. One of the restrooms in the warehouse still reads “Boys” on the door.
Stairwells in the building are wide and still have the slate steps from many years ago.“You can see the imprints of the kids' feet in the slate steps,” said Deana Young, office manager at Cunningham Shanor.Perhaps more subtle, but some original doors and rooms at the former West End school still remain intact. The former principal's office, with it's own tiny bathroom and high ceilings, still has the look and feel of an administrator's space.Young said the transition from West End Elementary to Cunningham Shanor offices was a challenge initially, but now it simply feels like home.Built in 1911, it's one of the oldest Butler school buildings still standing. One that is even older is the former Institute Hill Elementary School, now Butler Physical Therapy offices, erected in 1901.According to a 1983 Butler Eagle article, the top floor of Institute Hill's three-story building was ordered closed by state inspectors because of structural deficiencies.Students were shuttled to two other schools with spare classroom space and the building closed in 1980 over the protests of Institute Hill residents.The district sold the former Institute Hill building in 1982 for $50,000.Many other school district buildings that were around the same age, such as the original Center Avenue Elementary building, erected in 1890; the original Broad Street Elementary School, built in 1896; and the yellow brick building of the original Butler High School near the current junior high erected in 1908, have all been demolished.
In contrast to the Cunningham Shanor building, the former Bon Aire Elementary School, which is now the Bon Aire Children's Center, has the more apparent look and feel of a school building.Bon Aire on Homewood Drive north of the city closed in 1982. The building was sold to the Butler County Children's Center in 1985.Alice Nunes, executive director of the Children's Center, said it's not too difficult to convert an elementary school building to a preschool.“The classrooms have all stayed the same. Some of the classrooms that are here are offices, but we just put cubicles in them,” she said. “We didn't change them because at some point they may be classrooms again.“After they took the desks out, there really wasn't much structurally that we had to do because most classrooms already have water. We like classrooms to have water for paint and washing hands before lunch and breakfast and things like that, and cleaning up.”There are other perks, too: Schools are usually equipped with gyms, playgrounds and industrial kitchens.At Bon Aire, the gym was converted into an infant toddler center. There are about 120 preschool-aged children who use services there.The Butler County Children's Center also owns the former Franklin Township Elementary School in the Slippery Rock School District, called the Mt. Chestnut Children's Center, where the administrative offices are.It rented classroom space there for many years after the school closed in the 1990s, but it bought the building from another company in 2009.While there are many benefits to buying a school building, the age of buildings can pose a challenge, Nunes said. Bon Aire was built in 1950, while Franklin Township Elementary opened in 1962.“Keeping up with an old school building is hard because the reasons the schools sell them is because they're old and they need repairs and upkeep and that kind of stuff,” she said.“So that's something that you always have to think about, but it's still, I think it's beneficial to any preschool, young children, that kids can be there.”For instance, air conditioning units were added in both buildings for the hot summer months.In addition to the two schools the Children's Center owns, it rents classroom space for preschool and Head Start programs at Sugarcreek and the former Bruin elementary schools in the Karns City School District; at Dassa McKinney Elementary in the Moniteau School District; at Rowan Elementary in the Seneca Valley School District; and at the former Middlesex Elementary in the Mars School District.And if it made sense financially for the Children's Center, Nunes would support buying another school building. However, the mortgage still is being paid at the Mt. Chestnut Children's Center, so she doesn't see that being an option right now.
While there are some success stories about former school buildings, it certainly doesn't mean that marketing them is easy.Jon Thomas of Thomas and Williamson Project Management said Butler's likely to-be-vacated elementary school buildings probably won't be sold at market value.“I'm not optimistic you'll get a lot of money for those that sell,” he said. “Most schools (in the Pittsburgh region) are selling for a fraction of what they're worth.”Thomas was hired by the district in 2013 to complete the 17-month building consolidation study.Acreage and location will likely play a role in the success of selling the school building, he said. The city school would be ideal for an elder center, an assisted living site or a nursing home since there is a growing elder population. But rural schools might be a tougher sell.
Dale Lumley, superintendent, said the district already has received a few preliminary inquiries about buildings.“I've had some interest from a church group, a nonprofit group and simply a real estate agent who said she represented someone who was interested in a couple of our buildings,” he said. “That's as specific as I can get.”If a consolidation plan is approved this year, the buildings that will be closed will be cleaned, maintained and marketed to real estate companies.The district has plans to convert Center Avenue Elementary into an alternative school similar to the Midwestern Intermediate Unit-run Clarence Brown Education Center. The other four schools slated for closure, Lumley said, will probably be “mothballed.”“You obviously turn down the heat, you maintain a water supply, you buy the minimal utilities that you need,” he said. “There's not necessarily a rush, but obviously, the sooner you market them, then maybe you don't have to be responsible for mothballing or taking care of any the utilities in the building.“That's when you would see the full cost savings come.“Now the ideal thing would be if you were lucky enough to have a business take over a building. That then not only relieves us of the utilities of that burden, but to pay taxes. That potential exists. But I don't know what the turnaround time would be.”Keeping those schools open and maintaining the buildings would cost the school district up to $7 million over the next few years, Thomas said.
As far as other examples of the sales of recently closed school buildings in the county, Bruin Elementary in the Karns City School District has been closed since 2012.While there have been a few interested parties, including the Housing Authority of Butler County, the school remains empty and still is maintained by the district.The authority made an offer in February 2014 to buy the building for $100,000 and gave the school district a two-year option to continue marketing the building for a more lucrative offer.However, the offer didn't include the housing authority paying $38,000 in estimated annual utility costs during the two-year option period. When Bruin closed, the building was appraised at $260,000.In contrast, Har-Mer Elementary School in Slippery Rock School District, which closed in 2013, just was sold to Slippery Rock University last month for $300,000.SRU has plans to develop the building into the main site for its planned master of science in physician assistant studies degree.
