Historic Commission Advises Against Demolishing Sixth Street Building

kanecountyconnects / March 19, 2015 / Comments Off / Development, Government, History, Libraries in Kane County

Geneva’s Historic Preservation Commission on Tuesday said it would not endorse a demolition permit for the former Sixth Street School building — a sticking point to a plan for the Geneva Public Library to purchase the property as a possible future library campus.

Kane County has a contract to sell the building at 210 S. Sixth St. — presently the home of the Kane County Regional Office of Education — to the Geneva Public Library at a price of $1.5 million. As part of the contract, the Library District agreed to pay an additional $300,000 to have Kane County demolish the building.

The price of demolishing the building already has been estimated at more than $400,000 following the discovery of additional asbestos in the ceilings and around windows of the circa 1925 structure as well as an underground storage tank on the property. Contingency costs could bring the price of demolition as high as $447,100, according to a report from Kane County Operations Staff Executive Don Biggs.

Biggs made a presentation Tuesday before the Historic Preservation Commission, an advisory body empowered to review building projects and permit applications within the city’s Historic District.

According to Tuesday’s agenda packet, the former grade-school building was identified in a 1999 architectural survey as as a “significant” building that adds character to the Geneva Historic District. It also is described as “one of the last twentieth century public schools remaining in Geneva.”

In 2011, School District 304 tore down the former Coultrap grade school, which was built in 1923 as Geneva’s high school, but the commission did not weigh in on that decision because the building was just outside the boundaries of the city’s Historic District. The former Fourth Street Elementary School, which presently serves as School District 304’s primary administrative building and was renamed after former School District Superintendent Henry Coultrap, still stands, as does the older portion of Harrison Street School on the city’s East Side.

Biggs made a presentation before the HPC, submitting a 272-page report that outlined some of the difficulties of adapting the existing three-story building on Sixth Street. The laundry list of necessary improvements include electrical work, plumbing, masonry, roofing, heating, air conditioning and ventilation, as well as installation of an elevator.

The overall cost of restoring the present building was estimated by Cordogan Clark at $3.69 million.

The library purchase of the Sixth Street building has the potential to create a musical-chairs scenario for several public buildings. The city of Geneva has the right of first refusal to purchase the existing library building on South Second Street. If City Hall were to move to the present library building, the present City Hall on First Street could be converted to a cultural arts center.

Historic Preservation Commission members said they felt it might be possible to adapt the Sixth Street building for office use, but representatives of the Library District said the three-story structure would not work as a library.

Prohibitive factors include the cost of making the building handicap-accessible, the classroom-sized rooms and a requirement that library buildings have a load-bearing capacity of 150 pounds per square foot. The floors of the Sixth Street building are able to handle only about 70 pounds per square foot, according to the architects’ report.

The Regional Office of Education announced Wednesday that it is seeking a seven-year contact that would allow it to move from the Sixth Street site to office space at 28 N. First St., South Tower, Geneva, which is owned by Batavia Enterprises, LLC.

The next step likely will be to move the demolition request to the full Geneva City Council. Because of the Historic Preservation Commission recommendation, seven of Geneva’s 10 aldermen would have to approve the demolition.