Grambau Center sale defended
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ALPENA -- The Rogers City Area Schools Board of Education president on Tuesday defended the board's decision to sell the Grambau Center for $5,000, despite some criticism from the community.
"So far, the response has been generally positive," Rogers City school board President Gregory Zurakowski said about responses he's seen regarding the sale. "Couple of folks have said that, basically, it's about time, that we've been kicking this can around since 2006, in one form or another, and so it's good to have it done."
Despite being the sole vote against the decision to sell the property to David Dargis for $5,000 because he hoped the district might receive a counteroffer, Zurakowski stands by the board's decision, arguing that the priority was to get the building off the district's books and that Dargis agreeing to cover roof repairs himself made the sale larger in practice than it may have appeared on the surface.
"Dargis is going to spend ($25,000) to $30,000 within the next several weeks to patch the roof up," said Zurakowski. "So, effectively, you could be looking at a bid as being ($30,000) to $35,000, because it's an avoidance that the school district wasn't going to have to pay for that roof repair."
Zurakowski claimed that, despite the significance and legacy of the Grambau Center, that it was not a building that the school district would ever have a use for and that the cost of getting it into a functional state again would be too high, even if there was a use for it.
"The building was never going to be used by the school district again," Zurakowski said. "We could double our student count in the Rogers City Area Schools and have enough room in both (remaining) buildings to accommodate that. To bring it up to code, to make it usable as an educational space, or frankly usable as anything, we're looking at $12 (million) to $15 million."
Dargis is currently still open to many different ideas of what can be done with the Grambau Center, including possibly having a portion of it reserved for public use.
"We could do a lot of different things, including developing it for the community, rather than just senior apartments," Dargis said Tuesday. "Could be things like library space, expansion of the courthouse, or the county building. Lots of different options."
Dargis hopes to have the building in a more functional condition by late fall or early winter and hold an open house during which members of the community can see the improvements to the building.
"I want to show people what the Grambau Center is like since there is a generation of people who haven't been in there and a generation that hasn't been in there since they were kids," Dargis said.