Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 11, 1995 TAG: 9505110080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Some Southeast Roanoke residents will take to the streets to try to prevent the demolition of part of the 67-year-old school.
They plan a protest march in front of the school next week, probably on Tuesday, to rally support for saving the school's old classroom wing.
And they will ask City Council to hold up bond money for the $5.5 million reconstruction and renovation project until the School Board agrees not to tear down part of the school.
The board awarded a contract for the project Tuesday night, and work is scheduled to begin in mid-June.
But Bob Zimmerman, a businessman who has lived in Southeast nearly 60 years, said Wednesday that the neighborhood will pursue its effort to save the building despite the board's vote.
"We figure we've got 30 days, and we're not going to give up yet," he said.
Zimmerman said the school means too much to longtime Southeast residents to give up part of it without a fight. He and his wife attended Jackson. So did their children and grandchildren. He said there are thousands of people in Southeast who attended the school.
"They didn't notify people who have lived in Southeast all of their life that they were going to tear part of it down," he said. "My personal opinion is that they pulled a fast one."
School officials said the neighborhood was involved in planning the project. But Zimmerman and some other Southeast residents said they never were told that the front of the building, which faces Ninth Street, would be razed.
Some residents talked with City Council earlier this week, but it is doubtful the city can legally block the School Board's plan.
City voters approved a bond issue to pay for the Jackson project.
Some council members did not know about the plan to raze part of the school. But Mayor David Bowers said Wednesday that "my guess is that the School Board gets to make the decision" on the project.
Bowers said he likes to preserve old buildings, but "sometimes I have to accept an architect's report that buildings can't be saved." The Jackson project "is going to be a positive thing for Southeast," he said.
Vice Mayor John Edwards wants the School Board to reconsider its decision because "it sounds like people didn't understand how much was going to be done" to the school.
"I really don't know what council can do. We appropriate the money, and the School Board lets the contracts," Edwards said. "But I am very sympathetic to the citizens because of the meaning that the building has for them."
John Marlles, chief of community planning, said the city has no authority from a zoning and historical preservation standpoint to block the demolition.
The Jackson school is not on the National Register of Historic Places and is not in a historic district, he said, so the city is powerless to prevent the razing.
Still, Marlles said, the school has significance to the community. "The reaction shows the community attachment to the building," he said.
William Whitwell, chairman of the city's Architectural Review Board, said he hates to see part of the building torn down. But the board has jurisdiction only in the Old Southwest and City Market historic districts.
If the old Jefferson High School can be preserved, the Jackson Middle School building ought to be saved, too, said Joey Moldenhauer, a member of the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation. For thousands of people, Jackson has just as much significance as Jefferson, he said.
by CNB