WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Construction crews are continuing work on New Hanover High School’s sinking southwest entrance while students prepare to return to school next week. Sixteen classrooms and offices are being displaced, and some students will be taking classes in mobile classrooms this year.
The current renovations have been deemed “immediate” needs for the 102-year-old building, which houses the oldest high school in Wilmington. And more significant, long-term renovations could be on the horizon.
New Hanover County Commissioners voted Monday to fund a $300,000 facility study and master plan for New Hanover High School to determine what major repairs the building needs. The money will come from the county’s general fund, commissioner Jonathan Barfield said, and will take six to nine months to complete.
“Students that go to New Hanover High School deserve a quality education and deserve a quality, state-of-the-art facility as well,” Barfield said.
The study’s approval comes as a sigh of relief for Allison McWhorter and Kassie Rempel, who founded the AdvoCats – an organization that has been pushing for upgrades to the school. They say the school needs renovations to its cafeteria, gym and practice fields, among other areas.
“This is not so much about our kids, because our kids will have graduated by the time action is put into place,” Rempel said. “This is about the kids, this is about the community, this is about the next generation.”
The facility study will be the first time there’s been an in-depth look at the school’s needs since 1999. A study completed that year found the building in “very poor condition” and estimated repairs of over $15 million, even noting there were “readily apparent conditions” posing hazardous safety conditions.
Not much has been upgraded at the school since, Rempel said.
“We do not want that to happen again. We need the study to lead to action. And to lead to reform – whether it’s renovations, or whether it’s a replacement,” Rempel said.
Once the study is completed, local officials will have to decide which is the best path for New Hanover: maintain the existing structure by significantly renovating it, or build an entirely new building, similar to what the county did with College Park and Blair Elementary Schools.
“Eventually you have to decide – do we continue to pour money into something that’s failing over, over and over again, or do we start over and rebuild?” Barfield asked.
While Barfield said he’d consider supporting a total rebuild of New Hanover, other county commissioners, and assistant superintendent Eddie Anderson, have said it would be a difficult undertaking. Rempel and McWhorter said they want to wait and see what the study suggests before forming an opinion on the future of one of the county’s most historic buildings.
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