Local news

Still up for grabs: Dickey Elementary

Owners receive inquiries from interested individuals and organizations, hold open house

Owners of the former Dickey Elementary building listed the former school on the Facebook Marketplace earlier this week in an effort to find a candidate capable of maintaining and making beneficial use of the building for the community. Hours after the listing was published, owners received a barrage of inquiries from interested parties.

Dickey Elementary School’s fate remained uncertain as of November 2022. Owners Micah Clausen -- whose mother taught at the school and who attended it himself-- and Bobby Maguire have since posted a listing for the property on social media in an effort to find a candidate to assume ownership. Due to the overwhelming amount of messages Clausen received, he quickly coordinated an open house event so that all parties interested in seeing the property could do a walk-through of the building.

Among those who've expressed interest and attended the open house were members of the Millbrook Playhouse board of directors, childcare directors from the Lock Haven YMCA, advocates from Roads to Peace (Clinton County Women’s Center, Inc.), and several individuals from surrounding areas who were in search of a space as large as Dickey Elementary for various purposes.

Michelle Crowell, a member of the Millbrook Playhouse board of directors, provided a statement in regard to the board's interest in obtaining the school,

"We are about to start our 60th season, and as Millbrook continues to grow, we are always lacking space," she explained.

"We believe that we can use the building to our benefit and continue with our mission to provide quality, professional live theatre and encourage the development and appreciation of the theatre arts with a strong educational component," Crowell added.

Clausen and Maguire have expressed that their objective is to donate the property to an individual or non-profit organization capable of maintaining the building and putting it to good use. The recipient of the building would acquire it as-is, along with the abundance of school-related items it still contains -- the majority of which are still in good condition and are usable.

According to Clausen, “We want to make sure that the next owners have the most advantageous plans for the building so that it benefits the community.”

"Our intention at the time of purchase was to donate the building," Maguire said. "We didn’t want it to just be sitting here with no plans to make use of it in the future."

Maguire and Clausen had intended to donate the school to the Clinton County Housing Coalition, but both Lock Haven City Council and its zoning board strongly opposed their proposals.

When asked about the process of donating the school and being confronted with red tape, Clausen responded, “You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult to donate a building."

In November of last year, city council rejected the owners’ plans to convert the building into affordable housing through the housing coalition, citing a lack of parking spaces as the primary issue. A parking space ordinance enforced by the zoning board has prevented any potential project for the building from moving forward since 2020.

Clausen and Maguire joined forces with Jeff Rich, vice-chair of the housing coalition, and proposed that the building be turned into 19 units, however, the zoning board would not allow for that. At the following city council meeting, Rich presented council members with a revised plan, this time proposing that the building be made into 11 units rather than 19. He also requested that the required number of parking spaces, as per the city's code, be reduced from three spots per unit to two.

"The folks renting those units aren't typically two-car households," Rich said in early November 2022.

Rich had hoped to persuade council members to petition the zoning board to reconsider the parking space ordinance and create a variance for the building. Councilman Rick Conklin made a motion to send a request to the zoning hearing board at the meeting, however, it was voted down 3-4, with Mayor Joel Long breaking a tie. Those who voted in opposition were Barb Masorti, Steve Stevenson and Jeff Brinker. Along with Conklin, councilmembers Doug Byerly and Richard Morris voted yes.

In November of last year, Rich noted that he had a waiting list of approximately 240 individuals who were in search of affordable housing.

Rich acknowledged that it seems as though city council along with members of the community do not want the building to be donated to the housing coalition, stating, "They just do not want the development. Whether we do four parking spaces, or three, or two per unit, there is going to be huge pushback," he said.

After city council members and a few local residents expressed their opposition to the proposed donation to the housing coalition, citing a lack of parking spaces as the reason for their opposition, Clausen investigated the issue further.

In order to determine the number of vehicles that the building could accommodate off-street, Clausen evaluated the possibility of using the former basketball court located behind the building as an off-street parking lot in addition to the upper lot, which was used for parking when the school was in operation.

"The upper paved area had previously functioned as a parking lot which included 19 parking spots. In addition to those spots, the lower paved area, which was formerly a basketball court and playground, could accomodate approximately 20 parking spots," he explained.

Clausen also discovered that, with a few modifications to the structure, it may be possible to use the building’s lower level for covered parking, as the entryway is already wide enough for vehicles to pass through comfortably.

Clausen said he had observed the on-street parking for a period of time, in addition to evaluating the parking space available on the school’s property. He noted the availability of open spaces on South Fairview Street and the surrounding blocks on weeknights, weekends, and nights when the street sweeper is in operation. He did not find sufficient evidence to suggest that current South Fairview residents would lose their first-come, first-served street parking spaces on any of those nights. This was later confirmed by other residents on the street, but did not impact the decisions made by city council.

Some members of the community have inquired about the transformer issue, which contributed to the school’s closure.

"The transformer can't handle the massive boiler in the basement, but that situation can be rectified fairly easily by switching to gas heat," Clausen said.

Maguire believes that if city council members revisited the matter, they might change their minds about the school’s conversion into public housing.

"A building of this type, close to all the necessities; a bank, grocery store, gas station and downtown Lock Haven screams 'residential apartments,' and I'm sure that we could resolve the issues that city council addressed," Maguire said.