Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
The county recently received another infusion of state funding for the continuing restoration of the historic Monticello High School, more commonly known as the A-Building – a project that’s been ongoing for more than 20 years and has swallowed several millions.
The $500,000 grant comes by way of the Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources. Originally, however, the money was part of a larger amount awarded to the National Park Service (NPS) in the U. S. Department of Interior in 2019 as the Emergency Supplemental Historic Preservation Fund and Hurricane Michael Recovery Fund.
Of which funding the NPS awarded the Florida Division of Historical Resources $10,200,000, and the latter made $8,054,000 available to local governments “for recovery, repair and disaster mitigation activities directed at historic properties
damaged during Hurricane Michael” in October, 2018.
Jefferson County, in its application to the state for the funding, noted the flooding damage done to the A-Building from the rains caused by Hurricane Michael.
Per the requirements of the grant, the money must be used to repair and mitigate against future damage to the building. Among the permitted uses for the money are the disassembly and storage of the reusable portions of the wood floors on the first and second levels and the staircase; demolition and removal of the existing concrete basement floor slab; installation of a new drainage system; and waterproofing of the interior walls of the basement spaces.
Some of the funding may also be used for geotechnical services, including soil borings, soil testing, groundwater measurement and a survey for new underground piping within the building’s footprint and throughout the site.
The building basement has been subject to flooding and infiltration in recent years. But so far, the source of the water has yet to be identified.
Clerk of Clerk Kirk Reams told the board that much of the money would go towards repairing the building’s east wing, where the water intrusion has caused extensive damage. Part of the work, he said, would also entail waterproofing the wing against future water-related damage.
Since the restoration of the A-Building began in the late 1990s, more than $4 million has been expended on the project, largely from state and federal grants.
And according to the last estimate given to county officials about three years ago by the late architect Bill Douglas, who had been overseeing the restoration since 1998, it could cost another $4 million to complete the project.
The additional $4 million was “plus or minus 10 percent in 2018 dollars”, Douglas added at the time, underscoring that the restoration was then only 50 percent complete.
The estimate also, he said, did not include unexpected costs that could arise from unforeseen obstacles or problems, such as the water intrusion, which was already a problem even then.
Built in 1852 from bricks handcrafted by slaves at a nearby plantation, the A-Building – originally known as Monticello High – served as this community’s high school until 1985, when it was shuttered because of safety concerns over its structural integrity.
The effort to restore the building began in 1999 under the leadership of former School Superintendent Bill McRae, when the school district received a $375,000 historic preservation grant from the state to begin repairing the structure.
Following that first grant, a $299,000 preservation grant was awarded to the district in 2000-2001, followed by another for $331,000 in 2002, according to McRae, who has become the building’s historian.
In 2006, the school district received a fourth grant of $347,000 for the restoration effort, after which time, the district turned the building over to the county via a lease-purchase agreement and the county took over the restoration effort, largely under Reams’ guidance.
The county received its first preservation funding for the restoration of the building in 2015, a $350,000 grant. It received another grant for $525,000 in 2016, and in 2017, it received a third for $500,000. And this is not counting other monies that the county has invested of its own in the building through the years.
According to Douglas, when the school district started the renovation and restoration effort, it was estimated that the total project would cost $2 million to complete. That figure is now looking close to $8 million.
The A-Building is today the oldest brick schoolhouse still standing in the state.