Put Wiley to use

To the Editor:

John Janssen's opinion, “What’s up with Wiley?’ (Heights Observer, April 2024), is important.
 
Wiley School sitting essentially vacant does citizens no good.
 
Having recently been the beneficiary of a $13 million investment to function as swing space for high school students during the renovation of Heights High, Wiley can and should be put to more constructive use.
 
It's the newest of the three middle schools in the district. Mr. Janssen points out that Wiley's size of 147,819 square feet meets state guidelines for middle-school students. The Monticello and Roxboro schools currently in use total 237,932 square feet and exceed state standards by 40%.
 
As stewards of the community's resources, the CH-UH school board should consolidate students at Wiley and offer Monticello and Roxboro for sale to developers who will convert them to multi-family occupancy. Both are two-story Georgian architectural forms with a geometry that has proven highly desirable in Northeast Ohio for such adaptive uses.

Wiley, on the other hand, is a one-story facility with a geometry not suited to housing subdivision, and therefore has no value for such a conversion.
 


 

William Eberhard

William Eberhard, AIA, IIDA
University Heights

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Volume 17, Issue 6, Posted 8:45 AM, 05.29.2024