Like students who graduate and go on to begin another part of their lives, a former Brodhead school may see another chapter in its history.
Scott Kalb of Milton recently purchased the property on 10th Street and said Friday he plans to have apartments on the top floor, business rentals on the middle floor and a convention center on the ground floor. “It’s all big rooms down there,” he said about the bottom floor.
Kalb said he used to build houses so he knows construction. An asbestos expert has already been there as well as a representative from the Department of Natural Resources, he said. They are telling him what he has to do and what he doesn’t have to do with the building.
He said he doesn’t have an exact timetable for the changes. There are a couple of other people who want to buy into the venture, he said, “and that might happen here very soon.”
He said he will work on the convention center first. “It’s not going to take much to get it open (the downstairs),” he said. He said he has people who want to rent it.
In October, two brothers from Evansville held an auction for the school. They were asking a minimum bid of $40,000 for the school and two properties but could not get a buyer. Kalb said he purchased the school and the 2.91 acres it’s located on “for next to nothing.” That parcel is north of the railroad track.
He did not purchase another parcel of 1.6 acres and a storage building south of the track.
The three-story school building has 52,260 square feet, not including the gym, and is part of Brodhead’s TIF district. According to Brodhead’s 2006 Sesquicentennial book, the school was constructed in 1907. The upper floor was for the high school and the lower floor for other grades. An addition was completed in 1939 at a cost of approximately $200,000. In 1960, the building was remodeled to be used as an elementary and middle school. In 1974 and 1975, it was updated again to be used as a junior high. The remodeling cost was $930,534.
A new high school building was dedicated in 1960. An addition was made to the new high school in 1969. In 1995, the building was remodeled to become the middle school, which it remains today. A new elementary school was completed in August, 1965. The 10th Street building was sold by the school district in 1996 for $30,000, according to a neighbor. It was purchased by the Andrews brothers of Evansville.
Their intention was to convert the building into some type of apartments but they never followed through with that plan, said Bob Johnson, the realtor handling the October auction. He said he was not involved in the recent sale.
The building contains an elevator and large classrooms that could be converted into apartments, “real easily,” said Johnson. The building, Johnson said, “certainly has a lot of possibilities.” Uses could include senior housing apartments and multi-family housing, Johnson said at the time of the auction.
