Old town hall could be sold by district

Costs for upkeep, anticipated expenses for upgrades make it not worth effort
By: 
Lee Pulaski
City Editor

Plans to turn the former Wescott Town Hall into an education-based facility appear to be fading as the Shawano School District intends to ask the community for permission to sell the building.

The district’s buildings and grounds committee learned more about the costs the district is enduring just with simple upkeep of the facility, which once upon a time had been a schoolhouse. Many people now feel it would be better to sell the property than try to turn it into an alternative academy for grades 6-12, which officials had discussed last year before the coronavirus pandemic threw everything into chaos.

The town of Wescott returned ownership of the old town hall to the school district in July after leasing it for $1 over 50 years ago with the stipulation that it needed to be used for town purposes. Wescott stopped using it as a town hall around 2006 but still maintained it and occasionally rented it out for community use. Wescott decided in 2019 to return the building to the district’s care, which took district officials by surprise.

The only use it has seen by the district since the town returned it was as a meal drop-off site during the pandemic when schools had to close under state order.

The plans for the district to turn it into a school facility again are taking a backseat as the district is looking at an assessment of maintenance and upgrades needed for its existing schools, as well as a long-awaited update to Shawano Community High School’s athletics and fine arts facilities.

Shawn Mathwich, the district’s maintenance director, had looked up some numbers on the cost his department must pay to do the bare minimum. Even with minimal electricity in the building, the district is paying $800 annually to We Energies, he said. Further, Mathwich estimated the cost of going out to the facility for winter snow removal and mowing the grass at other times of the year is $1,040 in manpower and $100 in fuel costs.

“It’s costing us money, and it’s providing nothing for us,” Mathwich said.

The building is currently zoned by the town as institutional and semi-public. It’s tax-exempt, Mathwich said, so there is no assessed value on the property, which is 1.1 acres. He said he contacted a local Realtor to get an idea of what the building could sell for, but it was difficult to ascertain because it could be used for a variety of things.

“It’s hard on that particular building because it’s such a wide variety to target,” Mathwich said. “It could be commercial. It could be residential.”

Superintendent Randi Anderson noted that the district had looked at selling the building when the deed was returned, but at the time, the market did not look favorable. That has changed as Realtors are currently looking for properties to sell in response to public demand.

“Right now, I think we have a prime opportunity,” Anderson said. “Somebody’s going to pick it up, and I think we’re going to get a reasonable price for it. If we were going to do anything with it, it would need to have significant upgrades.”

She added that, if the district decided to later pursue a charter school, there is plenty of warehouse space in the community that could be renovated at lower costs than what it would take to modernize the former town hall.

“This opportunity, the stars aligned, and we decided, ‘Let’s see what the community thinks and let’s see what the board thinks,’” Anderson said. “It’s a nice green space if someone wanted to build a house, somebody wanted to build a business and turn it into a bed and breakfast.”

Selling the building has to be a community decision — not one determined by the board. So the question is expected to be on the agenda for the district’s annual meeting Sept. 27, when residents will also be asked to set the tax levy for the school year.

The building has two bathrooms, along with a counter and sink that could be turned into a kitchen facility, according to Mathwich. The district put a new furnace in the building last winter. One minus is that the Wi-Fi in the area is poor, he said, so upgrading technology to the 21st century would be costly for the district.


lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com