Demolition of old Jefferson School to take longer than anticipated

Tearing down Cape Girardeau's last segregated black schoolhouse won't happen as quickly as expected, a process slowed by an environmental assessment requirement to make sure the 107-year-old building is free of asbestos.

A representative of the building's owners previously said old Jefferson School, which served as a black school for two years before desegregation, was to be razed last week.

But city housing assistance coordinator Steve Williams said Tuesday it takes more time than that. The city requires that an environmental assessment be done, he said, before a demolition permit is issued. Such a permit requires that a building be torn down within 45 days after the date it is issued.

"How quickly it comes down depends on what the environmental assessment shows," Williams said. "It depends on what they find, what they have to take out and what the contractor's schedule is like."

Those are all costs to be borne by the building's owners, Guy and Rene Tomasino, who bought the old schoolhouse a few years ago and then opted to put it on the market.

In July, city inspectors started condemnation proceedings on the dilapidated building, a month after it was named to Missouri Preservation's most endangered list. The building needs a new roof, according to a city report that also describes the wiring, foundation, porches and plumbing as substandard. The city notified the Tomasinos, who moved to Florida, that the building was going to have to be repaired or demolished.

They have opted to demolish it. Repeated attempts to contact the Tomasinos have been unsuccessful and an email went unreturned Tuesday.

Real estate agent Jane Clark, who handles the Tomasinos' local properties that are for sale, said she originally believed that the demolition permit had already been obtained.

"Upon further investigation, I found out that her contractor was taking care of that for them and it might take longer," Clark said.

Clark reiterated the Tomasinos' position that demolition was the only choice for her clients, who had been unable to sell the building.

"They would love to see it sold," she said. "But it's been on the market forever, and [they] weren't able to negotiate a price. They decided they couldn't continue with this and they were going to have to tear it down."

Meanwhile, historians and blacks who lived through desegregation were still lamenting the loss of what they consider an integral connection with the past.

"It's just something that needs to be preserved," said Shirley Slaughter, a lifelong Cape Girardeau resident who never sat in a classroom with a white student. "I hate to see it torn down because we're losing a piece of history."

Such buildings are important to a community because they represent a legacy to the past, said Frank Nickell, director of the Center for Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University.

The old Jefferson School offers a definite connection to the community's integration of black students into previously all-white schools, Nickell said. When the school comes down, it will be a loss, Nickell said, but he understands it can be difficult to maintain buildings that no longer have a real-world

purpose.

People are torn between wanting to save historic buildings and wanting to see progress with the construction of a new building, Nickell said. But he hates to see this one go.

"There is a great need to tell the story of African-Americans in this community and not many places where that story is told," he said. "It will be a loss."

smoyers@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

731 Jefferson Ave., Cape Girardeau, MO