The red brick schoolhouse in Eagle Lake has gained a temporary reprieve from the wrecking ball.
After hearing from a crowd of alumni and ancestors of former school students at the June 1 City Commission meeting, Eagle Lake’s elected leaders gave them 60 days to come up with the money to restore the sentimental schoolhouse.
Nearly 750 people have signed an online petition at Change.org in favor of restoring the schoolhouse in a city of roughly 4,600 people. The online petition asks the City Commission for the opportunity to save the historic Eagle Lake Elementary building.
A Tammi from St. Petersburg summed up what may others have said on social media and in the petition commentary: “My mother went to school here and so did me and both my sisters. So many of my childhood memories are focused around this school.
“I met my best friend in Mrs. Denmark 2/3 grade classroom. I remember the smell of the cafeteria,” the petition commentator wrote. “The windows being open and praying for a breeze. It and the people molded me. It’s just a building to those that didn’t go there. For those of us that did get that privilege, it’s part of us.”
If grants and loans cannot be secured, or should a restoration fall through, the City Commission also decided to hire a demolition contractor at the meeting.
Built in 1926 as a school, the building in recent years has housed the Linda E. Weldon Activity Center, situated among other government buildings in Eagle Lake’s municipal complex. Eagle Lake intends to tear down and replace the entire municipal complex, including city hall, the commission chambers and community center.
The two-story building is about 8,000 square feet. It needs environmental, structural and mechanical renovations in order to survive, an engineer hired by the city wrote in a report.
Resident fought for delay of schoolhouse demolition
After listening to the concerned locals, a motion was made by Eagle Lake Commissioner Steve Williams and seconded by Commissioner Steven Metosh to award a demolition contract to WCM Construction in the amount of $125,769.
The motion also stipulated that the contract was to have an extended standby period where the notice to proceed would not occur until after Aug. 3 to give the residents an opportunity to secure financing to renovate the red brick schoolhouse.
“The residents at the meeting requested a delay in the demolition process to allow them time to see if they could find any funds to rehabilitate the building and the Commission gave them a chance to do that,” City Manager Thomas Ernharth said via email on June 2.
Restoration could be in the millions
On May 29, a consultant submitted a report to Eagle Lake saying the city might have to budget $6 million to modernize the building.
In 2022, Pennoni Associates Inc. of Winter Haven was retained by Eagle Lake to perform a structural and environmental evaluations of the building to determine its suitability as a library.
The environmental evaluation found asbestos and lead in the building. The asbestos insulation is primarily located on the building’s piping systems. Lead in the form of paint was found on the walls and trim inside and outside of the building.
The structural evaluation determined that the maximum load capability of the floors was 40 pounds per square foot, which is well below the Florida building code. The minimum floor load capacity for a library is 150 pounds per square foot.
Upgrading the structural capacity of the building would require stripping the building of all flooring and walls, reinforcing the floor joist systems on both floors and installing new flooring and wallboard.
Other issues examined by Pennoni included termite damage, the roof needs to be upgraded for Florida wind code requirements and the exterior brick walls have started to fail and are leaking water into the building.
Further, the plumbing, electrical system and air conditioning are well beyond their useful life and need to be replaced, and so does the elevator. And the foundation is potentially in need of improvements.
“Given all of the issues noted above, we would recommend the City budget for at least $750 per square foot ($6,000,000) should you choose to retain this building and complete a renovation so that it can be safely used by the public,” wrote the study’s author, engineer Steven C. Shealey.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Eagle Lake gives residents 60 days to find funds to save old school
Reporting by Paul Nutcher, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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