The Galloway School’s plan to demolish its historic Gresham Building is prompting a preservation-minded alumni group and talk of protecting a nearby sister structure that houses the Chastain Arts Center.
Neighborhood Planning Unit A removed the school’s plan from its November meeting agenda. Laurel David, an attorney for the school, says zoning-related requests will return at NPU-A’s December meeting. “In the meantime,” she said, “the Galloway School is evaluating some initial feedback from neighborhood representatives.”
The Gresham at 215 Chastain Park Ave. is the 112-year-old former Fulton County Almshouse, where the school has been based since its founding in 1969. The school itself got the column-fronted building listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. A representation of the building’s facade is used as the school’s logo.
Last month, the school announced a campus renovation plan that includes replacing the Gresham with a new Upper Learning Building roughly twice its size. The school has spoken without detail of “incorporating elements of the original building into the design of the new building.” The campus plan has other elements, including the renovation of the Sims Early Learning Center.
The school has said it originally intended to keep the Gresham but found it has many issues, including “structural integrity and accessibility,” “functionality and adaptability,” and “environmental impact and sustainability.”
The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation has urged the school to reconsider and reuse the building. Joining the advocacy is the Buckhead Heritage Society, a local preservation organization. Buckhead Heritage President Charlotte Margolin, in a written statement, said it was surprising the demolition plan comes less than 10 years after the National Register listing.
“Examples of schools, both private and public, in Georgia that have accomplished this [preservation of historic buildings] are well documented,” Margolin said. “The Galloway School community would be well served to study and follow those examples.”
“Buckhead Heritage strongly encourages The Galloway School to look at ways to, at a minimum, keep the facade and build what is required to educate future generations,” she added. “Preserving Gresham Hall will provide a sense of place and history for students, their families, and all who call Buckhead home.”
Meanwhile, a group of 10 to 12 alumni is gathering to build momentum among others for preservation. Bruce Johnson, a Buckhead resident, is one of those alumni, as well as a former substitute teacher there. He was part of the original group of students in 1969, who – along with parents and staff – volunteered hands-on work to renovate the almshouse. He recalls chipping in with painting.
The Gresham is “just the very symbol and heart of the school,” he says. “It’s such a treasure, and it’s such a historic building that just to lose that part of our history – I would hate to lose it.”
Johnson points to other educational institutions that are rehabilitating or renovating historic structures, such as the University of Georgia’s current update of its Holmes-Hunter Academic Building, which consists of two structures built in 1831 and 1860.
Johnson adds that school outreach to alumni has not been strong. He says that, like many others, he learned of the demolition plan from a SaportaReport story. He noted that a new video promoting the plan on the school website features officials and parents speaking in front of the Gresham.
“It’s kind of ironic,” he said. “The very building that they want to destroy, they’re all standing in front of it as if it’s the treasured symbol of the school. If it’s not that significant, why not pose in front of the new buildings behind it?”
In its past, as an almshouse — institutionalized housing for poor people or seniors — the building served only white citizens in the era of Jim Crow racist segregation. A more modest almshouse for Black residents was built nearby and still survives at 135 Chastain Park Ave. as the home of the Chastain Arts Center, a City-owned educational facility.
The Atlanta Preservation Center (APC) has spoken against demolishing the Gresham while noting the lack of legal protections to prevent it, as the National Register listing is not a shield. In a recent email to City officials, APC Executive Director David Yoakley Mitchell called for placing such protections on the Chastain Arts Center as the companion building, saying it “will become an even more significant structure” amid the controversy. He said protecting a “space that was designed to serve our Black residents… is needed now more than ever.”
The City press office and the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, which supervises the Chastain Arts Center, did not respond to comment requests.
“The Atlanta Preservation Center will continue to express avenues to explore for a process that can provide a sustainable outcome,” Mitchell said in a written statement to SaportaReport about the Gresham debate. “We must be able to find common ground, and an institution that excels in education should be a phenomenal way to achieve this.”
Preservationists have been circulating a 2016 SaportaReport column written by the late Beth Farokhi, a former Galloway head of school, about her experience of leading the National Register listing effort in 2011 as part of a celebration of the building’s centennial. Her son, Amir Farokhi, is a 1996 Galloway graduate and today an Atlanta City Council member. (His District 2 does not include the school.)
“Like many alumni, I received the news with a heavy heart,” Councilmember Farokhi says about the demolition plan. “The Gresham Building is where the school was founded, where many children fell in love with learning, and where remarkable teachers perfected their craft. Yet, I also know that the Board [of Trustees] would not make this decision without deep reflection and analysis of alternatives. The sustainability and future of the school are paramount. If there is tension between the need for more space, cost of upgraded facilities, and the preservation of the Gresham Building, I remain hopeful that elements of Gresham can be incorporated into a new building.”
NPU-A chair Brinckley Dickerson says the school plan was deferred from the November meeting to December’s. David said the applications with the City have not been deferred and remain on track for Zoning Board of Review appearances sometime next month. The school is seeking a rezoning to allow the new building and a revision of a special use permit (SUP) for a new site plan.
The zoning and SUP applications speak in strong terms about the need for a new building. They describe the Gresham as “in urgent need of repair.”
“Numerous temporary fixes over previous decades are now deteriorating and will require significant preventative measures,” say the applications. “More importantly, the building is becoming increasingly unsafe as it does not have a comprehensive sprinkler system nor does it have adequate fire life safety measures for its staff or the children. Also, the lack of handicapped access restricts students’ ability to attend classes and to safely evacuate children if they fall ill in the upper stories.”
Asked whether that meant the school was having problems with code compliance, David said it was not. “The Galloway School has not received any code violation notices,” she said. “The existing fire life safety measures need to be improved in order to serve and protect our students and staff.”
Another issue the school seeks to resolve in the process is a condition on the existing SUP, which dates to 2000, that caps enrollment at 750 students. “The school has inadvertently exceeded this enrollment maximum for many years,” the application says, and actually has 825 students. The school wants the condition changed to reflect that number.
I think it is awful that they are even considering taking down the Historic Gresham bldg. we have lived in the neighborhood for over 30 years and love the bldg. Also, may I point out all the private entities in the park that have continued to build and become larger and larger with less and less park public land. The Horse Park, NYO and now Galloway School. And, take a look at what the neighbors did to Holy Spirit Catholic School when they have tried several times to expand on their own land. The neighbors have rallied and bullied them to back down. Why should Galloway be allowed to expand and not Holy Spirit? And it doesn’t seem that it has allowed neighbors to have a lot of input. Traffic for Galloway School is already terrible in the afternoon and backs up Wieuca for well over an hour and half. I can’t believe the City has allowed the enrollment to go over the cap.
The current trend to ignore quality of life issues for residents, neighborhoods and local businesses has become rampant. I have observed egregious change over 30 years of regular return visits to Atlanta. A heightened awareness of preservation for aesthetic and historic architectural contributions to our communities is mandatory. Society needs its markers of time and place.