Red brick schoolhouse demolished
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
Published Dec. 1, 2010

A century-old Westlake landmark is now only a memory.

Workers from Ace Demolition of Cleveland last week used heavy equipment, including an excavator, to take down the red brick schoolhouse on Dover Center Road.

While workers have been preparing to take down the 101-year-old building for several weeks, the real demolition began Wednesday morning. Work had been delayed about a day when some equipment used in the demolition was late in arriving.

The last walls of the structure fell late Friday afternoon.

The demolition is part of the Westlake City Schools’ redevelopment of its Dover Center Road property. Lee Burneson Middle School will be renovated as an intermediate school. A new middle school will also be built on the site as part of the $84-millon capital improvement measure voters approved in May.

Ace Demolition was paid $77,910 to take down the building. A separate company did $68,000 worth of environmental abatement work at the site. The costs were paid for out of the district’s capital projects fund.

The red brick housed students up through 1968 when the school district made the building its headquarters. The building has been unoccupied since 2003.

The school district had offered bricks from the building to community members interested in a keepsake of the historic building. On Monday, district Communications Coordinator Kim Bonvissuto said response from the public to the offer of a free commemorative brick was good. She expected all 500 bricks the district reserved to be distributed.

The city independently ordered 4,500 bricks from Ace Demolition for a project related to the city’s bicentennial celebration next year, Planning Director Bob Parry said.

“We’re planning to create a founder’s trail which would have plaques or stones of the founders of the city,” Parry said.

Made from the red bricks, the trail would likely be created at Clague Park, according to Parry. The Westlake Historical Society and the Westlake Kiwanis Club may be involved in the project, which is still in the early stages of planning, Parry said.

CORRECTION: A Nov. 17 article on the red brick schoolhouse demolition incorrectly stated the demolition was paid for the $84-million capital project measure voters improved in July. The demolition is being paid for out of the district’s capital projects fund, district officials said.

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