EUREKA SPRINGS — It's historic by Eureka Springs standards, but nobody is raising a ruckus about the possible demolition of the city's 58-year-old high school.
"I haven't heard anybody say, 'I'm going to tie myself to that building,'" said Wayne Carr, the school district's superintendent, who wants to build a new high school. "I've not heard one person say, 'Don't touch that building.' Graduates are emotionally connected to the school, not the building."
Perhaps if the building looked more historic, if it had been built in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration, it would elicit a passionate clamor for preservation, he said.
But the one-story building at 44 Kings highway that has about 220 students is somewhat of an ugly duckling in this town of Victorian architecture.
"There's not as much attraction to this building because it's ugly," said Rusty Windle, president of the Eureka Springs School Board. "There's not a lot of emotion attached to that building. It's an interesting building, but it's not the least bit efficient."
The 24,096-square-foot building has a flat roof, asbestos floor tiles, a hallway cul-de-sac with no exit and glass blocks supporting the roof.
The 7-foot wall of glass blocks, which are no longer allowed as a load-bearing construction material, have compressed over time making it impossible to open many of the sash windows underneath. A 3-foot concrete wall supports the windows. Touted by the architect as "Maximlite," the glass blocks were painted decades ago to keep them from magnifying the sunlight into a blinding glare inside the building.
"Since they couldn't control the light, they just painted over it," said Charles Morrison, design and project manager for Morrison Architecture of Eureka Springs, which was hired by the school district to inspect the building and determine whether it should be renovated. "There are so many problems in that existing building it's not even funny."
Laura Morrison, Charles' wife and the firm's architect, told the city's Historic District Commission that it would cost more to renovate the existing building, which would basically require constructing a building inside the existing structure, than it would to build a new school on the 7-acre site - $5.2 million vs. $3.3 million.
"Those are some really rough numbers if you build a building that exact same size," Windle said, noting that the district needs a 60,000-square foot high school instead. "There is no way we could build it for that."
The commission considers any building in the Historic District that's more than 50 years old to be historic. On July 1, commissioners gave the school district approval to tear down the school based on "economic hardship," but that's only if another high school is built on the site.
Charles Morrison told the commission the property would have more commercial value if the school was torn down, then another school could be built elsewhere.
"The spot's wonderful," said Windle. "If it was a clean piece of land, it would be extremely valuable."
But commissioners didn't go for that.
"It was really innovative when it was built, especially for this town," said Melissa Greene, chairman of the Historic District Commission. "I would have liked to see it restored, or just put to another use."
Glenna Booth, the city's preservation officer and economic development coordinator, said the high school fits in with architecture along Arkansas 62, which runs along one side of the school and is home to motor courts that sprouted in the 1940s and '50s.
"There's still a lot of roadside culture up there around it," she said. "It's part of that historical preservation movement. You don't really value recent architecture because they're just old buildings."
Booth said there has been interest nationwide in mid-century buildings, which are "becoming endangered."
"Victorian architecture was once thought to be horrible," she said. "They wiped out parts of cities to put up other things, which are now parking lots."
Booth said the commission wants the school to remain at the current site.
"They don't want the school to go off to the edge of town," she said.
Carr said he prefers the edge of town. He wants to build a new high school on 34 acres the school district owns along Greenwood Hollow Road by the elementary and middle schools.
That would give the school district room to build a larger high school, said Carr. He estimates that construction would cost $7 million to $10 million. Greenwood Hollow Road is outside the city's historic district, so the building wouldn't have to fit in with surrounding architecture.
Even if a new school is built at the current site of the high school, it wouldn't be large enough, the Morrisons told the commission. They said a 5,000-square-foot addition would be necessary, and that could cost another $700,000.
Worst-case scenario, Carr said, is the high school remains in the current building and no addition is built. The school already has two additions to accommodate overflow classrooms.
"I guess size-wise we could make it do," Carr said of the existing high school, "but it's just the condition of the building. Nothing in this building really meets today's code. The flat roof is just something we patch all the time. And you can't run wires down through that glass block."
Instead, wiring for computers and other electronic equipment runs along the exterior of the walls.
Energy efficiency is also a concern in the existing high school. There's no insulation in the roof. And the walls have an R value (a measure of thermal resistance) of less than 2. Arkansas energy code requires an R value of 13 for school walls.
The building was designed by T. Ewing Shelton of Fayetteville in 1951, a time when energy efficiency wasn't a consideration. Ewing also designed Asbell and Root elementary schools in Fayetteville, incorporating glass block in those buildings as well. The glass block in the Fayetteville schools was later replaced with double-pane insulated glass.
Carr said the school's enrollment has hovered around 220 for six years. If the district builds a new high school, it would have to accommodate the projected school population 10 years down the road, which is 240 students.
The district could sell the high school building and property, Greene said, but she would like to see it stay intact.
"It's prime commercial property," she said, "so it could be worth a lot of money."
Carr said the School Board will probably decide before the end of the year what to do. If the board decides to build a new school, it will have to take the issue before voters and request a millage increase. Carr said Eureka Springs currently has a 34.15 mill property tax for public schools, the lowest rate in Carroll County.
"It's not really a good time to ask for a millage increase, but it's never a good time to ask for a millage increase," Carr said.
Carr said the School Board hasn't put that in writing, "but that's the consensus."
"It just doesn't seem like a prudent thing to do financially," he said.
The School Board could refinance a bond issue for another 30 years and generate about $4 million to help with the construction, Carr said.
The Morrisons are working on plans for building a high school at both locations, but they're not going to do the full-fledged design until the School Board decides what it wants to do. Kinco Constructors of Little Rock will be the contractor.
Shelton was a well known architect in Arkansas. He designed the Baxter County Courthouse in Mountain Home, which was built from 1941 to 1943 by the Works Progress Administration and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
"He built them all over the world," said Ernie Jacks, professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Arkansas. "There are some in Japan."
"I know architects I've spoken to about this don't have a special love for it," Jeff Shannon, dean of the UA's Fay Jones School of Architecture, said of Shelton's school designs, said.
"It has served the district well for lots of years," he said of the old high school. "It's just time to move on."
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 08/24/2009