For the sake of progress? Really?

I'm sensing a theme in these posts lately...they seem to be predominately about my hometown.  Oh well, here's another one.  A building constructed in 1921 was demolished recently.  By recently, I mean within the last two years.  This building was the former Port Clinton High School, then in 1965, it became the Jr. High/Middle School.  It was an example of one of the last real architecturally impressive buildings in Port Clinton.  You can see the building in the foreground.  There is actually a second building in the back left area, Jefferson Elementary, which was also demolished.  According to the school district, the building was 'beyond repair' and was beyond its years of being useful as a school building.  Well here's the insider information that they failed to tell everyone in the community...the reason why it was in not ideal condition was directly related to the actions of the school district.  Here's why:

For little over a decade, the district wanted to construct a new, state of the art building.  Countless levies were put on the ballot and each year, the issue was defeated by voters.  So, what did they do? Well the district decided that they weren't going to address some of the little issues with the buildings until they became major issues that required larger amounts of funds to fix.  Compound all of the little issues that grew to bigger issues and guess what...they were able to convince enough voters that the buildings were beyond repair and past their primes.  And, here's what the block looked like with out the buildings.

But there is a sticking point.  The building was no beyond repair.  I remember the officers in Leadership Council sitting down with the superintendent of the district and talking about what could be done to better Port Clinton back when I was a junior and senior in school.  We all said that there should be a community center in town.  Well, at that point, there wasn't a building that could facilitate that.  The building could have been retrofitted for other purposes.  However, neither the school district or community leaders had a vision or foresight to think of how better to use the property instead of demolishing it.  Unfortunately, both PCMS and Jefferson Elementary were demolished and a new middle school was constructed right next to the high school (it looks horrendous, by the way...).

Do you want to know what the block looks like now?  That's right, its just an empty lot.  The city doesn't have any plan for it-no new construction, no playground/athletic field potential, nothing.

It's simply a vacant lawn, essentially.

How is this local history?  The Middle School was constructed in 1921.  There are still members of the community who attended High School when it was in that building.  The demolition of the school represented the failings of the school and city to remember the importance of historic buildings.  Why not re-purpose it?  By no means was the building actually structurally unsound.  There are many examples of former schools being renovated and used for different purposes aside from that of a school.  One must simply go to downtown Fairborn to see an example.

Sorry, rant over! =)

Pictures courtesy of The Port Clinton Newsherald
http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=bc&Date=20130826&Category=news01&ArtNo=308260013&Ref=PH