AMHERST – A year-long demolition delay of the Little Red Schoolhouse is over and Amherst College is set to begin to tear down the 79-year-old building to make way for its new science center.
This marks an unsuccessful end for those who were fighting to preserve the historic building, according to the Little Red Schoolhouse Preservation Committee.
Carol Gray, a member of the committee, said in a statement that the college still has time to reconsider and move the 1937 schoolhouse to a temporary site.
“It’s not too late for Amherst College to recognize and preserve our community’s history rather than destroy it,” Gray said.
But college spokeswoman Caroline Hanna said in an email Tuesday that demolition work by Barr & Barr, Inc., which is building the science center, has started.
“The beginning of the process of disassembling the building began yesterday,” Hanna said. “It will be completed over the next couple of weeks.”
Beginning next week, four residence halls, Pond, Crossett, Stone and Coolidge, will also be torn down. Each of these social dormitories has been part of the campus since the 1960s, Hanna said. A fifth social dorm, Davis, was demolished in 2012.
The 1,800-square-foot schoolhouse was designed by notable architectural firm McKim, Mead and White and constructed to house the Amherst Day School. The Amherst College-owned building last held preschool classes in spring 2013.
In its place will stand the 230,000-square-foot science center, which is expected to be completed in 2018. The $214 million structure will house classrooms and laboratories.
The town Historical Commission last May imposed a one-year delay on Amherst College’s request to demolish the Little Red Schoolhouse, citing its status as possibly the first building to be designed exclusively for preschool classes. The delay was advocated for by the Little Red Schoolhouse Preservation Committee.
The group later requested $200,000 from the Community Preservation Act account to pay for the cost of moving the structure, but withdrew the request after being unable to find a suitable new site.
Amherst College officials have said that they tried to figure out how to save the building before submitting the demolition request, and later offered to donate the schoolhouse if questions were answered about how it would be moved from the campus and how it would be funded.
The college, citing professional estimates, said it would have cost $1 million to move and reinstall the schoolhouse.
But the preservation committee said that it received estimates that the move would cost $150,000, which did not include reinstallation costs.
Hanna said the schoolhouse’s history has been extensively researched and this information will be preserved.
“The college engaged an architect to document the building with a comprehensive report on its structure, including extensive photos, that will be maintained in the special collections and archives at Frost Library,” Hanna said.
Staff Writer Scott Merzbach contributed to this report. Chris Lindahl can be reached at clindahl@gazettenet.com.