BEDFORD, Va. (WDBJ) - Thursday marks six months since the old Bedford Middle School went up in flames. The developer, Dave McCormack, said that from the outside it might look like things have been slow moving, but behind the scenes, they’re working full steam ahead.
“When you have a fire like that it’s very hard to come back from,” McCormack said.
Even demolition crews had concerns when they first arrived on the scene.
“My first thought was, ‘How are we going to get this done?’” Kenny Brown, the field site supervisor said.
The upstairs room where the fire started, is now only empty airspace. In the hallway next to it, some lockers are unrecognizable while others remain intact.
For the last 6 weeks, Brown and his team have been carefully gutting the building.
“We had to go room by room,” Brown explained. “And all the debris that was on the floor, we had to through it out the windows then pick it up with a skid-steer and put it in the dumpster. So it’s been a lot of manual labor.”
But because of the historic nature of the project, it hasn’t been a typical demo job.
“They’re saving a lot of the building so there’s walls and windows and doorways and different pieces of trim we’ve had to save so they can use it in the build out of the new building,” Brown said.
“Every bit of historic fabric in that building is important to us,” McCormack said. “I know there are folks who are looking at this from the outside, maybe walking the loop or whatever, and see the debris coming out of there. And we are trying to judge in real time what is savable and what’s not.”
Along with reusing materials, the crews have also been able to give away artifacts to members of the community.
“There was an old piano in there that the old music teacher got,” Brown said.
Unfortunately, not everything could be saved.
“The auditorium was not salvageable,” McCormack said.
From the balcony, you can look down into what remains of the stage and floor and look up to see the the complete lack of a roof.
“There were big giant eye-beams and the fire was so hot, it melted and twisted those and they all fell down inside the building,” Brown said.
Now the space where the auditorium is will be turned into more 10 more apartments, but even getting that approved took time.
McCormack said the first 5 months after the fire were filled with a lot of paperwork and consulting.
“Anytime you have such a devastating situation happen in such a historic building, you have to be really careful about how to proceed and how to move forward with your applications and plans because you don’t want to violate what they call the standard,” he said.
And like most other businesses, COVID-19 affected the Department of Historic Resources.
“They’re all working from home and there’s a back log there,” McCormack said then added. “I can’t say that the impact has been all that problematic for us so far.”
Which is why McCormack said that all things considered, the project is progressing relatively quickly.
“The big thing that most folks don’t realize is that there’s so much that goes on behind the scenes on a project this big. So it’s really important that we do this strategically and with the right process and in the right order.”
For Brown, who grew up in Maine, this started off as just another job.
“After we’ve been here for a little while and getting to know some of the locals, I’ve come to understand that it’s a piece of the town’s history,” he said. “And to them it is special and so it took on a bit of a different feel after that.”
It’s a feeling the town of Bedford knows well and one McCormack wants to preserve in the next chapter of the old middle school’s life.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to have the building getting cleaned out,” McCormack said. “It’s a great first step. And I think it gives us the foundation now to really think about the building and that’s a very liberating place to be.”
The demolition phase of the project could be done by the end of the week. McCormack said ideally Waukeshaw Development will begin construction in the fall, but they still need some plans approved by the historical society and to get financial backing.
The cause of the fire was arson. The suspect, Daniel Flint, is awaiting a preliminary hearing set for October 2020.
Copyright 2020 WDBJ. All rights reserved.
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July 23, 2020 at 04:42PM
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Old Bedford Middle School nears end of demolition and reclamation phase six months after fire - WDBJ
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