MPS board awards bid to demolish State Street building Midlands MI
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The board approved the bid, which was recommended by the administration, by a 4-0 count, with Treasurer Jon Lauderbach recusing himself from the voting to avoid a potentially perceived conflict of interest involving one of his clients. Board President Scott McFarland and member Patrick Frazee were absent from the meeting, and Vice President Phil Rausch presided over the meeting in McFarland’s place.
The State Street building was originally called First Ward School when it was built in approximately 1918. In 1947, it reached an enrollment of 585 students shortly before Eastlawn Elementary School was completed to absorb some of those students. The building closed as a school in 1976 and then became a special education services center and later a science resource center.
The demolition will be paid from the 2015 Bond Projects using Series 2 bonds.
MPS Superintendent Michael Sharrow told the Daily News that Quality Environmental is almost finished removing asbestos from the State Street building. He expects the demolition to start by mid-January and finish by March 1.
In a related subject, Sharrow told the Daily News that the request for proposals period for the vacant Eastlawn property has closed. MPS will review proposals that it received from three companies, then interview the companies, and will probably enter into negotiations with one of them about sale of the property for redevelopment, he said.
The three companies are PK Development Group, LLC, of Okemos; River Caddis Development of East Lansing; and Samaritas, Chesapeake Community Advisors, and Pinnacle Construction Group of Grand Rapid, Chicago, and Baltimore, Maryland.
“We’ll have the City of Midland and the (Midland Area) Community Foundation review the proposals,” Sharrow noted. “It’s MPS’s decision, but we’d like their input.”
