The Galloway School on Thursday tore down the historic Gresham building that sat prominently atop a Chastain Park hill for 113 years, to the surprise and disappointment of some alumni and nearby residents.
But the school’s plan for a new facility was dealt a blow that same evening when the Atlanta Zoning Review Board unanimously voted against endorsing Galloway’s proposal for a new building under a special public interest designation. Zoning Review Board members shared concerns designating a special public interest for a private school and setting a precedent for similar entities.
The final decision on the proposal goes to the Atlanta City Council in September.
Credit: The Galloway School
Credit: The Galloway School
Bruce Johnson, a Galloway graduate who lives near the school, said tearing down the building was “bad behavior.” He was glad the board did not recommend approval and hoped Galloway took that as a sign to start over.
The Gresham building originally served as a Fulton County Almshouse for the poor and then was used for Galloway when the school was founded in 1969. It provided classrooms for middle and high school students through the end of last school year. Students this year are attending classes in the former Atlanta Girls’ School about 3 miles away. Total enrollment is about 750.
Galloway Head of School James Calleroz White said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the school has made repairs “so we could keep kids safely in that building, but it was very clear after the engineering report that we could not keep that building safe structurally for years.”
Calleroz White said the building was not designed for education, forcing the school to conform to the space. He also said he initially wanted to renovate Gresham, but costs were too high.
“No one is coming to our school for the facilities,” Calleroz White said. “The feeling of Galloway is from the people. It’s about the relationships. It’s about the connections that we can continue to have and what happens in classrooms. This project from day one has always — and will continue to always — be about kids.”
Preservation proponents say the building warranted saving, citing its age, architecture, civic past and legacy of being racially inclusive as segregation academies opened throughout the South during the Civil Rights Movement. Three children of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. attended the school, and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places. However, that did not bar the school from any actions with the building ― officials at the review board said the school had a valid demolition permit.
“Historic structures like the Almshouse are more than just physical entities; they are essential to maintaining the cultural and historical fabric of our community,” preservation group Buckhead Heritage said in a statement. “The loss of this building has erased an important chapter of Buckhead’s history, making it difficult for future generations to grasp the character and identity of our community.”
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
The school’s alumni council endorsed plans to replace Gresham while another group of alums has fought to save the building. An unofficial community vote at Tuesday’s Atlanta Neighborhood Planning Unit meeting in Chastain Park went against Galloway’s plans by a vote of 43 to 28.
David Finehirsh, an alum and principal of a real estate and development firm in New York, developed an expansion plan for the building that he said cost less than the school’s.
Finehirsh, who has led historic preservation and renovation projects in New York, said before Gresham’s demolition that Galloway’s handling of the building has not been collaborative or transparent, stoking the conflict with those who believe in saving the building. He called the Galloway’s actions antithetical to his experience of attending a school with an “open, wonderful, warm idea about education, learning and exploration on an individual basis.”
Calleroz White said he worked with the planning unit, adjusting the design to better match the Gresham building, lowering the height and increasing the setback from the street. But he said the requests piled up, and he decided it was time to move forward with the application for a new building, even without the local endorsement.
Keyetta Holmes, director of Atlanta’s Office of Zoning and Development, said Galloway is in a unique situation because it’s on a small plot within a city park and would require some form of zoning action to build a school facility sufficient for its current enrollment. She noted that the Neighborhood Planning Unit turned down two prior proposals that would allow the school to construct its new building. Her office endorsed Galloway’s most recent proposal to build it under a special public interest designation.
Joe York, a Chastain Park resident, spoke favorably about the proposal, saying, “Galloway provides a vibrance to our neighborhood that I think we should support,” noting the changes the school has made to match the community.
Brinkley Dickerson Jr., chair of the Neighborhood Planning Unit, was critical: “We don’t want something that looks like a Publix imported from Sandy Springs. We want something that’s consistent with the greatness of (Chastain Park).”
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