Baldwin County school officials are moving into a new stage of a countywide effort to clear away aging, unused campus buildings, with the next round of demolitions set to take place in Fairhope.
The cleanup follows a similar project completed in Bay Minette, where the city covered the cost of tearing down several outdated structures at the old Baldwin County High School site, including the former Ertzinger house, a home economics and agriculture building, and an old classroom wing along East Fifth Street.
In Fairhope, crews are expected to take down the former Fairhope Alternative School building along with six cottages that once served the old Fairhope Intermediate School. School system spokesman Terry Wilhite said the structures have deteriorated to the point of becoming eyesores and, in some cases, safety hazards. No final decision has been made on how the cleared sites will eventually be used, he said.
The demolition list also includes several buildings at the shuttered K-1 Center on South Church Street, which has sat empty since it closed in 2011. Crews plan to remove a group of cottages, a pink-colored building and the old cafeteria there. The center’s main historic school building and the Pelican’s Nest Science Center, however, will be spared and remain standing.
The timing of the demolitions lines up with a broader financial decision facing Baldwin County voters. Residents were scheduled to weigh in on March 31 on a proposed 8-mill property tax increase intended to fund a 10-year, $350 million capital improvement plan for the school system. Renovating and reopening the K-1 Center for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first-grade students ranks among the top priorities in that plan, along with construction of a new Bay Minette Elementary School serving grades K-6.
Wilhite said clearing older, unused buildings ahead of time is a practical way to hold down future construction costs. He pointed to the district’s recent experience building the new Foley Elementary School, where enough open space existed on the property to construct the new building while students continued attending classes in the old one, avoiding the need for temporary relocation. Applying that same approach at other sites, he said, depends in part on getting old structures out of the way well before new construction begins.
For Fairhope residents who have watched the K-1 Center and the old alternative school sit vacant for years, the demolition work marks a visible step toward whatever comes next for those properties, even as the bigger questions about funding and future use remain tied to the outcome of the county’s capital improvement plan.