Despite Charm, Old School Faces New Realities

Anyone who has ever gone junking in a dusty antique shop knows this dilemma.

Is what you find there valuable and a treasure? Or is it just dirty and old?

The junker’s dilemma is precisely what faces the architects charged with renovating the 1912 Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane.

In February, an astonishing 78 percent of voters approved plans to turn 86-year-old Lewis and Clark into a school for the 21st century.

Now, in August, comes the hard part.

“How much restoration can we do and still make sure we watch out for student safety and prepare for the needs of 21st-century education?” said Ned Hammond, Spokane School District 81’s planning director, on a recent tour of the old building.

The warm glow left over from voter approval to restore the oldest high school in Spokane threatens to turn into a heated debate.

“We want Lewis and Clark renovated as promised and not gutted,” said Steve Franks, co-founder of a year-old group called Spokane Preservation Advocates.

Two issues are of particular concern to the historic preservation group — the interior stairways in the main school and the fate of the old administration building that sits just east of the school.

“I supported the LC project,” Franks said. “I never dreamt in a million years that they would be now be talking about demolishing a part of the school and removing the staircases. These are shocking proposals we never thought would be on the table.”

The details of how LC would be renovated weren’t ever outlined because the bond had to be approved before real planning for renovation could begin.

Now that planning is under way and some serious money and safety issues have cropped up. “Building codes today are much different than they were in 1912,” said project architect Steve McNutt of Northwest Architectural Co.

In January, McNutt wrote a letter in support of maintaining the historic character and integrity of the old LC. Now, he isn’t so sure about the feasibility of maintaining either the open stairways or the old administration building.

“School codes today are adamant about having safe exit corridors,” McNutt explained.

These exit corridors must separate smoke and students in case of emergency. The old stairways inside LC don’t do that. Somehow, that has to be changed.

And once the architects got inside the old administration building, which has roots predating LC because the building was part of South Central High School that burned in 1909, the challenges were even more complex and costly.

“That annex building has four different floor levels that don’t match up with the LC building,” McNutt said. “And the annex never was built for classroom spaces.”

Classrooms, plus a good floor plan for electrical, plumbing and heating lines, are important to educational planners at LC.

“The staff at LC clearly has focused on these educational issues as the top priority,” explained Gary Livingston, superintendent of the school district. A poll of teachers taken earlier this year found that better classrooms, more laboratories, and a generally updated work space ranked ahead of historic preservation.

With these competing interests all in place, the architects have now gone to the drawing boards. Tests already are under way on how best to patch the cracks and save the beautiful terrazzo floors.

Restoration window suppliers already are looking for ways to match the old wooden windows with new, triple-paned glass and frames. Even the marble bathrooms are under study to see if they can be preserved.

The architects are recommending the first floor stairway at LC remain open, but that the upper stairs be enclosed and new separate stairways be installed at the corners of the building.

And the architects have an optional plan that show the old administration building being torn down and a new building constructed in its place at a savings of $550,000 and the gain of more and better classrooms.

These last proposals have angered Steve Franks and others.

“The staircases define Lewis and Clark. It’s how the whole building works. They just need to search for more creative solutions. I think they are there,” Franks said.

Perhaps. But the historic preservation folks also need to remember the junker’s dilemma. Just because it’s old, doesn’t mean its good.

A drive up Stevens past the old administration building doesn’t exactly bring tears to the eyes.

The old building is half buried into the hillside, has few outstanding architectural features and actually blocks the view of the much more visually appealing Gothic-Tudor ornamentation on the main Lewis and Clark structure.

“What we need here is a spirit of cooperation,” said Christie Querna, president of the district’s school board.

That spirit can be practiced at two public hearings, Aug. 12 and Aug. 18 at the Lewis and Clark Auditorium. The renovation details will be discussed, beginning at 7 p.m.

The best needs to be preserved.

The rest needs to be junked so Lewis and Clark High School can be revered for decades ahead as an example of how preservation and education can work together under one roof.