First demolish ... then polish
Old Collierville High isn’t being razed, it just looks that way
The sights and sounds of destruction outside Collierville’s historic former high school just off Town Square have raised questions that the town is demolishing the building. “I know several people were concerned the historic building was affected by the demolition, but it’s not,” said Jeff Jones, chief of staff at Collierville Schools. He said contractors are tearing down sections of the building added in recent decades, but will leave the historic building in place.
The two-story historic building was completed during Great Depression days of the 1930s under thenPresident Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Projects Administration, an effort to create jobs. “For a period of about four years, hundreds of workmen were bused daily from Memphis to the building site,” Clarene Pinkston Russell wrote in her 1994 history, “Collierville, Tennessee: Her people and neighbors.”
A new middle school was later constructed on Byhalia Road. In the mid-1990s, the two institutions swapped: the historic high school became a middle school, and the high school students began studying at the Byhalia location , which still serves the district as its high school.
Today, fast-growing Collierville is building a huge new high school in the southern part of town.
The Collierville school system uses the historic former high school for its administrative offices, and staffers continue to work there even as the renovation continues. A recently opened satellite campus for the University of Memphis stands nearby.
Jones said the two-story section being demolished held some classrooms, a library and cafeteria. This section of the building sat empty for several years, he said, adding that he believes there were problems with Americans with Disabilities Act compliance as well as mold and decay.
Plans call for replacing the demolished section with a parking lot and a new building entrance, said Mike Simpson, chief operating officer for Collierville Schools. The renovation will bring other improvements, including a new roof and access to the building’s second story.
Jones said the current administrative staff has only one conference room for some departments, and it’s common for staffers to have meetings in hallways.
Employees are learning to live without heating and air conditioning: on March 20, a big yellow crane hoisted the building’s old air conditioning units from the roof.
The old boilers-and-radiators heating system has likewise been shut down, and during the recent cold snap, staffers made due with extra clothes and space heaters, Jones said.
The old heating and cooling systems will be replaced with new ones.
Meanwhile in front of the building on March 20, a man drove a piece of heavy equipment with a claw-like grabber. The machine’s treads ground their way over the smashed materials as the claw moved piles of thin twisted metal, like a dinosaur building a nest. The air was filled with the sound of a rumbling engine, a warning beeper and occasional metal-on-metal shrieks.
One technicality separates this from other schools projects: the building is actually owned by the Town of Collierville, not the school system, and the town is paying the bill.
Earlier this year, the town approved a $2.4 million contract with A & B Construction Company for the current phase of the demolition and renovation work.
Reach reporter Daniel Connolly at 5295296, daniel.connolly@commercialappeal. com, or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.