Demolition of 110-year-old school in Bergen County has begun

LITTLE FERRY — Workers have begun demolishing Washington School, a 110-year-old brick elementary school building on Liberty Road that closed in 2018.

School officials said it would take about four or five weeks to completely clear the site. Officials plan to build a new middle school there if voters approve the $38 million project in a special election on March 12.

Superintendent Matthew Perrapato said school leaders are taking care to minimize the impact on students' learning at Memorial School across the street and in the nearby modular classrooms.

“It’s construction. There will be some noise and vehicles, but workers are very cognizant that we will have schoolchildren here and they will be learning,” he said. “There will be no stopping of traffic, or traffic pattern delays.”

Story continues below photo gallery.

For some longtime residents, it has been bittersweet to see the school come down. Generations of borough schoolchildren have passed through the doors of the brick building.

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But officials have said the school, which closed due to its deteriorating condition, no longer met the borough’s needs. The school's classrooms were flood-prone, the roof leaked, asbestos was in the walls and the school did not meet accessibility standards.

The school was severely damaged during Superstorm Sandy, which flooded the gym, five classrooms and a computer lab with 4 feet of water. Nike funded the cost of a new waterproof gym floor, and hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on repairs to reopen the damaged classrooms, much of it covered by insurance.

After part of a ceiling fell in a room in December 2017, an inspection by an architect and engineer found more compromised ceilings, each costing $12,000 to $15,000 to replace. A feasibility study put the cost to rehabilitate the building at roughly $8.3 million. But officials said the addition needed to support current enrollment needs would cost another $26.6 million, and the building would still be prone to flood damage at its current elevation.

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Residents and students in the fall took pictures and shared memories to say goodbye to the school before fencing was put up around the site.

The borough Board of Education awarded a bid in August for $595,000 out of the district's capital reserve fund for the demolition, which is not part of the $38 million referendum for the new middle school.

If voters approve the proposal in March, a 65,000-square-foot, three-story building will be constructed at the site.

The planned school for students in grades six through eight will have classrooms designed for collaboration and hands-on learning, science labs, modern safety and accessibility features and a cafeteria with a working kitchen. The building would also feature two outdoor recreation spaces, including a rooftop area that can be used for recess, gym, outdoor learning or lunches.

The district would receive $1.6 million in state aid to spend toward the cost of the project if the bond proposal is approved. The average property owner, with a home assessed at $375,501, would pay an estimated $50 per month in school debt taxes for the project.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Demolition of Washington School in Little Ferry has begun