Historic High Springs building on display

HIGH SPRINGS – Wild Spaces and Public Places oversight committee members met in the Santa Fe Room of the historic High Springs Elementary School and Community Center to see how their $538,238 in sales tax funds have been spent.

Wild Spaces and Public Places is a two-year, half-cent sales tax initiative approved by the voters in 2008, paying for land acquisition and construction projects in the county.

“For the last three or four meetings, the committee has been meeting in the cities where grant funds were distributed to see how the tax money was used,” said Ramesh Buch, Wild Spaces and Public Places staff liaison and program manager for Alachua County Forever, dedicated to preserving the history of the area. He explained that committee members received photographs and cost breakdowns as each municipality worked on their projects, but most of the committee members had never actually seen the finished projects. “This year they decided the best way to see the work that had been done was to hold a meeting in those cities,” he said.

Some cities have not used all of the money allotted to them. However, High Springs has completed their projects and has used all their funds.

During the meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 28, City Manager Ed Booth took the small group on a tour of the renovated school and community center to see those improvements, answering questions along the way. He talked about the previous condition of the building and was not only able to show before pictures, but also took them to see two rooms that had not been renovated due to funding limitations. Booth explained that he was still searching for additional grant funds to complete the renovation of those rooms and hoped to be able to do so sometime in the future.

“I think it’s a great project that has historical significance for the people of High Springs,” said John Martin, Florida League of Cities representative on the oversight committee.

“Although I am not from High Springs, I can understand the significance of saving the school building. In Hawthorne, the school I went to and my dad went to has been torn down,” he said. “I wish we could have preserved it like they did in High Springs. I commend the city and residents for making the choice to save the building. The only problem I heard from the city manager was that people did not know the building was available to rent, but they are working on that issue and I have no doubt that will soon change,” he said.

During the tour, the museum was open and museum displays were being worked on. Committee members were able to see the room and how it was being put to use since the building’s reopening this year. In addition, committee members said that using the building for office space and to rent out to the public was the intended use of the building in their opinion.

“Before the renovation, the building was condemnable,” Booth said. “Floors were falling in and $44,000 went to the cost of demolishing one wing of the building next to the post office.”

An additional $300,000 in historic preservation grant funds went into repairing the roof, replacing windows, painting and other façade improvements. The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) put the bulk of the money into the building at $450,000, according to Booth. “All told, $1,340,000 was spent to demolish, renovate the inside and outside of the building and make it habitable,” Booth said.

In addition to the $431,028 from the half-cent tax, which was spent on the inside of the school building, records show that another $85,271 was spent on the Civic Center, $6,913 was spent on parking improvements at Civic Center Park and $12,026 was spent on construction of public restrooms at Catherine Taylor Park.

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