MISSOULA – Missoula County Public School leaders are pressing ahead with plans to remodel and restore the old Missoula College campus into a new administrative center for the school district.
The district also now must decide what to do with the old Administration Building on Sixth Street, a structure that dates back to the 1800s.
MCPS trustees approved of a move to call for bids this week for the remodeling and renovation of the old Missoula College campus off South Avenue, a building which the school district owns and was vacated by the Montana University System nearly two years ago.
Administrators envision remodeling the campus, removing asbestos, and upgrading heating and ventilation systems and setting up the buildings for a combination of business offices and headquarters for a number of district programs.
It’s also believed it can be accomplished with existing building funds and the call for bids will see if that pencils out.
Meanwhile, the district will move out of the old Administration Building which hasn’t been used as a school since the 1950s. It has a lot of problems, including ADA access.
But some trustees want to make sure the community has some input on what happens with the structure.
“It might make sense as a board, to consider that when we formulate some kind of group to consider future use of that building a similar process involving stakeholders around that building could be considered, rather than an internal conversation to the board and or admin,” trustee Grace Decker said.
“Because certainly, we’ve had the experience of some of the older buildings in our district having lots of mixed opinions about what, as a community, we want to do with them,” she added.
The board opted to organize a committee to begin looking into that question of the Sixth Street building’s future.
