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Photo by Erin Nelson.
The renovated Bluff Park School is now home to the Hoover City Schools Student Services Department.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
The lobby of the Hoover City Schools Student Services building in the historic Bluff Park School.
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Photos by Jon Anderson.
The original Bluff Park School — built in the 1920s — sits ready for renovation work in March 2021, five days after demolition work was completed on other buildings that had been built around the original facility over the years.
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Staff photo.
The Bluff Park School housed Artists on the Bluff until 2017.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
The renovated Bluff Park School in Hoover on Aug. 26. The building is now home for the Hoover City Schools Student Services Department.
Almost 100 years ago, in 1923, a two-classroom school building was constructed in the Bluff Park community.
It was simple in design and very symmetrical, with a small walkway at the entrance, an office for the principal, an office for the secretary and one classroom and one bathroom on each side of the building.
Over the decades, the Bluff Park School went through several expansions and by 1988 had grown to 32 classrooms, a cafeteria that doubled as an auditorium, a kitchen and a library.
After a new Bluff Park Elementary School was built and opened in phases over several years in the mid 1990s, the old school was used for a variety of things, including a community school, after-school care facility, storage area, community meeting space, home for the Hoover Historical Society and working studios for artists.
But in 2017, Hoover school officials decided the majority of the old school, which had been renamed as Artists on the Bluff, was in too poor shape to keep, and the artists and historical society were forced to leave.
School officials decided to demolish the majority of the building but vowed to keep
the original two-classroom building for history’s sake.
It took almost $500,000 to demolish most of the buildings and about $1 million to renovate the original 3,472-square-foot building, but Battle Miller Construction completed the renovation in February, and the building now is being used by the school system’s student services department.
School officials took great care to keep the exterior design as close as possible to the original building, said Matt Wilson, the school system’s director of operations. They kept the majority of the original bricks intact, and when they had to replace some, they ordered special bricks from New England and special mortar from the Midwest to match the style, Wilson said.
The windows are new, but they, too, match the original design, he said.
Inside, most of the interior was gutted, but workers were able to keep the original pine wood flooring in place, Wilson said. The floor was wavy, however, due to the age of the building and floor joists that had been eaten away by termites, he said. Workers had to strengthen the support for about 30% of the building, which was a lot of work, he said.
The termite damage to the subfloor and some exterior walls, which was discovered after renovations began, added about $26,000 to the cost, Wilson said. There also was a lot of asbestos that had to be removed prior to demolition.
Other than the flooring, the rest of the interior is new, including new walls, plumbing, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, wiring, lighting and the addition of a sprinkler system, Wilson said. The building also was made accessible for people in wheelchairs.
The building now contains offices for three people, a conference room, small kitchen, two new bathrooms and storage rooms.
“They did a great job,” said Bob Lawry, director of student services for the school system, who is one of three people who work in the building on a regular basis. “This really suits our needs.”
The student services department has moved around from place to place over the years, for a while operating out of the former Berry Middle School on Columbiana Road and for the past six or seven years at Brock’s Gap Intermediate School, Lawry said.
They were occupying some unused classrooms at Brock’s Gap Intermediate, and it’s nice to have their own space now that is more fitting to what they do and more centrally located in the city from an east-west perspective, he said.
The conference room is used by other people in the school district as well, plus for meetings of school support personnel from other districts in the Birmingham area, Lawry said.
One thing Lawry would like to add on the wall of a hallway in the old school building is some historical photographs of the building and Bluff Park, but they need some sponsors to pay for that, he said.
The building truly is appreciated by the community, he said. “It’s not abnormal to have people stop and take a picture of the outside,” Lawry said.
A number of them said they went to school there years ago, and one school system employee recalled time spent in the principal’s office.
Wilson said he’s proud of the work done to save the building and maintain its historical integrity.
“I’m excited,” he said. “I think the end result we received was exactly what we were looking for.”
Editor's note: This story was updated on Oct. 11 to indicate that the existing Bluff Park Elementary School was opened in phases over several years in the mid-1990s.
