Can Cleveland High School Be Saved?

July. 22, 2024
By: Fred Leeson

In coming months, trying to save Grover Cleveland High School from demolition might ripen into a major Portland preservation issue.

The Portland School Board has approved plans to demolish the 1929-era school and build a replacement on the same site, while Cleveland students would be bussed to the former Marshall High site in the meantime.  The board has already authorized architects to start drawing the plans.

Trouble is, voters have not yet been asked to approve funding for the Cleveland project.  And the districts own preliminary studies indicate that thoroughly rebuilding the school’s interior with new classrooms and mechanical systems could cost less than a new building.  The refurbishing also would bear fewer environmental consequences than tearing down and building anew.

The school district also cited a survey of 1413 respondents, 81 percent of whom said they preferred a new building to renovating the old.  Alas, 40 percent of those respondents were students who likely didn’t have any appreciation of the environmental costs of demolition and starting new.  Concern also has been raised about how wording in the questionnaire may have foreordained the answers.

So far, no public stances have been taken by the two neighborhood associations directly related to Cleveland.  The school sits in the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood, while the football field four blocks away – “Cleveland Stadium” – lies in Richmond.  Decisions by those associations could have an effect on the anticipated ballot measure for funding or encourage the district to change its mind.

The board of directors of the Architectural Heritage Center, a non-profit organization that strives to protect historic buildings and public places, voted strongly in favor of preserving the historic structure.  The directors said the first priority should be renovating it as a high school; if that fails, the building should be saved for some adaptive reuse, such as a community center or private business.  The directors also noted the added environmental costs of demolition and new construction.

It will take a significant community expression if the building is to be saved in any form.

The four-acre Cleveland site comprises the 1929 building designed in a Classical Revival style by the district architect of the time, George H. Jones. Subsequent additions of less architectural importance were built adjacent to the original in 1957, 1958 and 1968.  At some point, the multi-paned double-hung windows were removed from classrooms in the 1919 building, but restoring them with comparable new windows could return the historic facades to their original appearance.

The historic facades are red brick with staggered quoins of glazed terra cotta surrounding multiple doorways and exterior corners.  A historic evaluation performed by the school district in 2007 concluded that Cleveland “retains its integrity of feeling, association, materials, setting and workmanship” reflecting its origins and history.  The study concluded that the building would be eligible to for placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

During a 14-year tenure as the district architect, Jones designed 25 buildings in the era of Portland’s rapid growth.  Many of them – Irvington, Beaumont, Riggler, Duniway and Beaumont to name a few – stand as charming and well-loved monuments in their neighborhoods.

The Cleveland project is another step in the district’s plan to improve all Portland high schools for another century.  So far, the district has done comprehensive and tasteful restoration/modernization projects at Roosevelt, Franklin, Grant, Madison and Benson.  The school board opted to tear down Lincoln and build new, and made the same decision at Jefferson, where restoring the much-abused historic building was not supported by the neighborhood.

The good news, then, is that the district might be willing to be flexible.  That’s what preservationists should be asking for at Cleveland, hoping that it leads to a better outcome than demolition.

Fred Leeson is a former president of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation and a member of the foundation's Board of Advisors.