Photo by Erin Nelson.
Construction crews work to remove asbestos from the historic Bluff Park School. Actual demolition began Oct. 20.
A project to tear down parts of the old Bluff Park Elementary School has begun after years of planning.
But Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy said the oldest and most historic part of the structure — built in the early 1920s — will not be torn down.
Instead, school officials plan to renovate and reuse the original part of the building, which has two classrooms and two rooms most recently used as offices, said Matt Wilson, the school system’s director of operations.
The part that is being torn down includes the old lunchroom and kitchen, a four-classroom addition on the left side of the main entrance, a two-story addition to the right of the main entrance that included the old library that for many years housed records of the Hoover Historical Society, and an L-shaped group of class-rooms in the back of the campus.
On Sept. 10, the Hoover school board agreed to pay Complete Demolition Services $461,000 to handle the demolition work for most of the old elementary school, which sits next to the new Bluff Park Elementary School on Park Avenue.
At one time, school officials had hoped to save more of the buildings, including the old lunchroom and kitchen, but further inspections revealed additional problems that made the structures unsafe and renovations unfeasible, Wilson said.
Complete Demolition Services was the lowest of four bidders for the job. The schoolboard had budgeted $604,000 for the project, so it came in well under budget.
Wilson said Complete Demolition hired a subcontractor to remove asbestos from the old building before the actual demolition work. All the asbestos removal was to be done in a completely sealed environment, so there was no need to be concerned about health impacts for children and staff in the adjacent operating school or others in the nearby community.
The goal is to complete the demolition by late November or early December.
Wilson said he hoped to have bids for the renovation work on the oldest part of the building ready for the school board to consider at its Nov. 9 meeting, so that renovations can begin as soon as demolition is completed. The goal is to have renovations complete by the start of the 2021-22 school year, he said.
The school system’s student services staff is expected to occupy the building once renovations are complete.
Since the new Bluff Park Elementary School opened in 1993, the old building has been used for a variety of purposes. For a while, it was known as the Bluff Park Community School, which offered a variety of classes and served as a gathering spot for community meetings.
From 2011-17, the building was the Artists on the Bluff facility and served as a home for working studios for artists and their art classes. From 2015-17, the old cafeteria was converted into a restaurant called Capers on Park Avenue.
But the old buildings have belonged to the Hoover Board of Education since the school system was formed in the late 1980s. In recent years, as school officials began exploring capital needs and the condition of the old Bluff Park School, an architect determined that renovations would have cost $3 million to $4 million. School officials determined it wasn’t worth the cost.
