'This is not just a building': Church, Wellsville community ponder new uses for ICS

The future of Wellsville’s Immaculate Conception School remains in limbo, but community stakeholders have a few ideas regarding what should happen next.

Immaculate Conception Church held a public meeting Wednesday night that drew a standing room only crowd to the school library. ICS, which dates back more than 125 years, shut down after the 2022-23 school year due to declining enrollment and related fiscal challenges. The fate of the three-story brick building that housed generations of students was left uncertain by the school’s closure.

Rev. James Hartwell said the facility is now being used for some religious education courses and may be utilized for adult ministries. The general public can rent out parts of the building for events like birthday parties and activities like pickleball. The church also plans to move the parish offices into the ICS building from their current home across the street.

Beyond that, though, the church is searching for a long-term answer that works for the parish and the community.

“Immaculate Conception owns this building. The parish owns the building. The diocese isn’t going to yank this building out from underneath us,” said Hartwell, who also cautioned that “until the bankruptcy is resolved most everything that we do now is in consultation with the diocese” of Buffalo due to insurance issues.

Here are the main proposals raised at the meeting.

Reopen ICS

Several community members asked about the feasibility of reopening ICS at some point in the future.

Hartwell said ICS would need 100-plus students “to make a viable school,” noting the decline in student population persisted “for a long time” before it forced the school’s closure. ICS had 46 students in pre-K through sixth grade to end the 2022-23 school year. A little over half of the student population at closing was non-Catholic.

“I know the school has been beloved for many years, but as we know all things human made are temporary,” said Hartwell.

If ICS cannot continue, Sister Alice suggested the church honor its past by dedicating the building to children’s programs and a place for families to meet.

“This is not just a building. This is a Catholic school. … Many families sacrificed to have their children educated at ICS,” said Sister Alice. “The building belongs to the parish and their children and that’s what it should be used for.”

Partner with an existing private school

Ray Oberst, Director of Parker Jordan Christian Academy in Allegany County, said he was open to starting a conversation about potentially using the building to house the private school founded in 2021. Enrollment started with 15 kids in grades K-8 and has grown to 48 this year.

The interdenominational school has outgrown a few locations and has maxed out its space at Faith Bible Church in Little Genesee, Oberst said, with four teachers on staff and students now on a waiting list.

“We are not Catholic but we are certainly a Christian school with deep religious values,” he said.

Turn the school into a women’s shelter

Trinity Cowburn, Director of Residential Services for Catholic Charities Steuben/Livingston, said that while the nonprofit also serves Allegany County, it currently has no services for women. Cowburn proposed utilizing the classrooms as apartments to provide housing for a much-needed women’s program.

“When we take these women and try to get them into treatment, we’re sending them far away from home where they’re removed from their families, removed from their kiddos,” said Cowburn.

“Something I’m working on in Steuben County is a women’s program that would have women and children. You’ve got these big classrooms. These could be smaller apartments for women and children to be in a place where they have some structure and have some treatment and their kiddos with them so they can really heal together and grow.”

Cowburn said grants could cover renovation and program costs. A homeless shelter, or a warming center in frigid weather, were also suggested.

Cowburn said a similar program in Livingston County is run by volunteers overseen by one staff member.

Transition the building into a daycare

Sean Burdick, a former ICS board member, said the soon to be vacated parish office building could possibly be used for the women’s shelter while the main ICS building serves as a daycare.

“This town is underserved in daycare services,” said Burdick. “There are a lot of parents that struggle every summer trying to get their kids into a daycare program.”

Burdick is in favor of bringing back the school “no matter how long it may take,” pointing to how St. Ann’s Academy reopened in Hornell after the Rochester diocese closed that school.

“Hiring teachers might be cheaper than any retrofitting of the building that may have to be done for an alternate use,” said church trustee Tim Aiken. “Either way we’re going to have something invested to use the building, whether it be through construction, handicap accessibility, who knows what. … To me, it’s a school. Look at the simplest solution — use it as a school.”

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What’s next

Hartwell said church trustees and a yet to be named committee will review options in consultation with the Diocese of Buffalo.

“We’re going to look at all this, evaluate and reevaluate,” he said. “My preconceived notions might change.”

The church has no deadline for a decision.

This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: ICS, Wellsville community weigh how to best repurpose school building