WESTFIELD – The City Council unanimously approved an appropriation of $25,000 to “button up” the exterior of the city’s last one-room school house located off Montgomery Road in the Wyben neighborhood.
The council’s Finance Committee gave a 2-0 positive recommendation for the appropriation requested by the city’s Historical Commission to initiate work to seal the exterior envelope of the building constructed in 1862, to prevent further weather-related damage this winter.
The Community Preservation Commission approved the funding last July and reaffirmed that vote in October after receiving a detailed architectural report.
The City Council held up approval of the appropriation while that School Department funded architectural study was completed, with a cost estimate for restoring the historic building.
The study provided a menu of options, many of which were rejected by the CPC, because of the expense associated with those options. How the building would be used in the future and what facilities would need to be added to support that future use all impact the cost of a complete restoration.
The residents of Wyben purchased the property, on which the school stands today, in 1861 for $62.50, right after a mob, incited by an abolitionist speech, burned down the former schoolhouse.
The 30-by-22-foot building is currently owned by the School Department, which budgeted $4,000 for an architectural assessment of the building to determine the scope of preservation work required. That work was recently completed and determined that the $25,000 is needed immediacy to repair a leaking roof which is causing damage to the building interior and that the building foundation needs to be stabilized until the scope of further restoration can be identified.
City Planner Jay Vinskey said at the October CPC meeting that the report and cost estimate is “scary” because the architects presented not only a basic needs list for immediate action and future preservation, but also included a number of options that significantly inflate the cost estimate.
“When you break it down, there is $200,000 for site work, paving, environmental controls, a septic system,” Vinskey said at that time. “You can cross some of those items out. I took out a lot of those and that brought the (preservation work) down to about $137,000 just for the building.”
School Department Business and Technology Manager, Ron Rix, said the architects added a number of costs to turn the building into a “usable public building with septic and plumbing systems, handicapped access” that significantly inflated the restoration project cost estimate.
“What do we have to do right away not to lose the building?” Rix posed to the CPC members.
Rix said the answer to that question is to address issues that are causing water damage to the structure and its foundation. The slate roof is leaking around the chimney and stormwater is weakening the foundation.
Thursday night Ward 1 Councilor Christopher Keefe said preserving the city’s “last one-room schoolhouse is a worthy project, if we don’t have to spend too much.”
Keefe said the restoration cost could trigger state and federal handicap accessibility (Americans with Disabilities Act) law, which would increase the cost of the restoration work.
“If we spend too much, we hit the threshold to be ADA compliant,” Keefe said. “They’re trying to get a waiver for bathrooms and other facilities required under access laws.”
