By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Applying Dowagiac Board of Education's school improvement problem-solving model to operations, specifically Central Middle School, Tuesday night generated 26 ideas.
Ideas ranged from senior housing or a recreation center to a medical plaza, commercial offices, a park with a community bandshell or a site for a new fire station.
A scheduled two-hour strategic planning work session at Pathfinders Center grew into three, but the administration emerged with a short-term action plan of sorts.
Despite a wide range of possibilities for Central, suggestions boil down to selling the educationally obsolete structure being replaced Monday by the new Dowagiac Middle School for seventh and eighth grades or demolishing it before it can become an eyesore.
Assistant Superintendent for Business and Operations Hal Davis estimated it will cost the district $40,000 just to heat it this winter in addition to ongoing maintenance costs.
Board members decided they want to see the deserted, three-story 1926 building in daylight and will tour it at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 19 before their 7 p.m. meeting.
It has not been listed, however, and a for-sale sign planted on the lawn along Main Street is a distinct possibility in the near future.
One concern heard frequently from board members is that peddling Central to a developer could result in a situation similar to Watervliet's where a private project fell through. When the dilapidated structure became a vandalism target and eyesore, the community blamed the school district. "If we sell it, it's out of our hands," Jane Laing said.
That's another decision board members must wrestle with - to regard Central as a community asset worthy enough of preservation in some form to give it to city or to try to turn a profit.
Further along in the process, the board wants to involve interested community members with a "stroll memory lane" tour when data has been gathered to lay out some cost options.
Cuthbert said the centrally located site is more valuable than the obsolete building. It occupies a brownfield area, which could provide some financial incentives for job creation.
Some of the most popular suggestions, of course, such as senior housing or a recreation center, rely on third parties, since neither the school district or the City of Dowagiac is interested in being a landlord.
Davis said the district would need to "promote and explain" that the school system has "no business in these other arenas" dominated by private developers.
The board moved toward a more aggressive timeline of six months than the year to 24 months Davis threw out to get discussion started.
Davis will obtain a demoliton estimate for comparison with other options identified.
Larry Seurynck argued that Central has already been available for 31 months and "nobody's stepped forward to this point. If we let it linger, it's not going to get any better."
Gathering data and involving others in the community is an important consideration, however, because otherwise the decisions eventually made might seem capricious instead of reached after months of deliberative cost comparisons.
One of the more intriguing ideas submitted anonymously was that Central be partially demolished with some wall sections incorporated into the design along with the architectural flourishes hidden behind the trees brought down to ground level.
This being brainstorming, where no idea is to be brushed aside as too wacky, there where suggestions that it be imploded, with chances sold to push the plunger or that bricks and other pieces of Central be sold as mementos.
The board also discussed districts where developers converted schools to other uses, such as a Wisconsin company which refurbished South Bend Central for senior housing.
South Haven sold an elementary school for use as condominiums. "Different demographics," Crandall said of the Lake Michigan community.
Board members Greg Ferrier and Bill Lawrence were absent.