Monett school board votes for demolition

The Monett school board voted to demolish the structure known as the South Building on the former high school/middle school campus at its March meeting. 
The decision to demolish a major building in the school system came without raising any questions from school board members. 
“The time has come,” said board president Ken Gaspar. 
The South Building, which opened in 1964 as part of the high school, was built in two parts several years apart by Monett contractor Brown and Fertig. It was built on the site of Monett’s second high school, erected in 1924 by M.E. Gillioz. The structure has been empty except for storage since the middle school moved to its present location by the high school in 2023. 
 
Uses considered
School leaders have entertained a number of uses for the building, including as a larger site for the Monett Learning Center for students with autism or other behavior issues, located in the southwest corner of the Monett Elementary School campus. 
“A lot of [the decision] is based on the structural condition of the building,” said operations director Steve Garner, after the meeting. “Putting money into it to renovate it would be costly. The cost to renovate it would be prohibitive. We don’t have a use for it.” 
A large part of the building was designed as a science lab. Even that has no value to the Monett Intermediate School nearby. Principal Jennifer Wallace reported that the MIS campus has adequate room for all of its science classes at the present time, as well as room for other services, in part because MIS now only houses fourth and fifth grades, since sixth grade moved to the middle school. 
Both Garner and Wallace stressed that since the middle school moved, there is no movement of students across Ninth Street. School leaders have no interest in reopening that scenario, especially now that Ninth Street reopened to traffic after several years closing it during school hours for safety reasons. 
The South Building has also had problems from stormwater runoff for years, heading downhill toward Scott Street. Garner conceded that could also have impacted the condition of the building. 
The stormwater problem appears to stem from a rare mistake by Brown and Fertig. The Gillioz high school building didn’t have a water problem, and had a half-basement under the classrooms. According to Charles Rowell, who attended junior high classes there, the basement had an apartment for the custodian on the west end, with above-ground windows, and the east end was the student locker room. It appears that in the process of demolishing that building, tearing out the basement left the depression that resulted in the stormwater problem in subsequent years. 
 
Sidewalk with grad names
What also remains around the South Building are several sections of sidewalk with the names of high school class members from the 1920s. 
“We’re looking at what to do with those,” Garner said. “Some have been removed. There are some still on the north side entrance. We’re not going to let them be destroyed.
“It’s tough when you remove something that was part of the community. To the people who went to school there, it’s sentimental. There are situations where, unfortunately, it needs to be done.”
The district has no immediate plans for what to do with the space after the South Building is gone. Superintendent Mark Drake said the long-term facility committee was looking at two different parking lot options, one on grass, like Republic uses, versus asphalt. It would be large enough to park a fire truck on it. 
Board members approved a bid from Vaughn Construction for the demolition at $75,000. The firm agreed to donate $50,000 toward the new scoreboard at Burl Fowler Stadium, making the out-of-pocket cost to the district only $25,000.