Residents trying to save old Eastern High School fight on

TUESDAY, Dec. 13 — Efforts to save the old Eastern High School building are still on the table, according to seven speakers at last night’s City Council meeting.

The group included several members of the Committee to Preserve Eastern High and Promote Mental Health, formed this year after University of Michigan Health-Sparrow announced a proposal to demolish the school to make room for a $97 million, 120-bed psychiatric hospital. The U of M Board of Regents has yet to act on the plan.

Formal discussions over preserving a portion of the building, specifically its west wing, ended in August after UM-Sparrow announced it would no longer meet with the group. In July, Council members voted 5-0 to urge UM-Sparrow to preserve some of the building as it moves forward with the new facility. But in August, under pressure from local unions, members opted against studying whether to declare the site a historic district, which would have stalled development.

“I'm disappointed to see we can't seem to have a reasonable discussion. We always get to this point where it's a crisis,” former Preservation Lansing President Dale Schrader said. “If it is too late, I have to ask, how did we get to this point? We're talking about a small portion of this building. There’s 18 acres on the site, and we're only talking about the west wing.”

Dale Schrader

Eastside resident Jennifer Grau was one of a few speakers who asked the Council to delay issuing permits until UM-Sparrow returns to the negotiating table. Before they allow work to begin, she urged them to “encourage” UM-Sparrow leaders to “explain their site needs for the entire site, and to try to meet those needs while preserving a small portion of Eastern High School.”

Belinda Fitzpatrick dared UM-Sparrow to “take their whole business out of town” if they aren’t willing to reconsider.

“There’s got to be other potential uses. There’s got to be some sort of control that the city has over this,” she said. “They say this is supposed to be for the mental health. What about the psychic trauma to our community? What about the disorientation?”

There was a lone dissenter in Judith Evans, a former educator who said she taught at Everett High School for 13 years. She believes Lansing’s growing homeless population warrants the conversion without preserving part of the structure.

“I hold the unpopular opinion that Eastern High School should be redeveloped for a psychiatric facility. It’s obvious that we have a homeless population in Lansing, and there are so many studies that document the correlation between mental health and homelessness,” she said.

Evans said she interned at Napa State Hospital for the Criminally Insane as a college student in the late 1970s. For her, the experience was eye-opening.

“By the ‘80s, the majority of those hospitals were closed down, and the ability for people to reach out and get some kind of intervention in order to help them with whatever mental illness was plaguing them was pretty much lost,” Evans said. “My youngest sister was a victim of this and ended up tragically dying because she just could not get the help that she needed.”

Judith Evans

She said Lansing is in dire need of a psychiatric facility for those same reasons.

“I do not believe that buildings are sacred. I believe that people are sacred. I do not believe that the march of progress is measured by saving old buildings, I think it's by saving people,” she said.

Evans also raised concerns over the presence of chemicals and black mold at the site. “The infrastructure is compromised, at best,” she said.

On the other end, James Bell, a westside resident and former teacher at Eastern and Sexton high schools, argued that historic buildings do, in fact, hold a notable significance in communities like Lansing.

“It should be the responsibility of this Council, the mayor and the community itself to identify and protect those places that have this quality of sacredness, a place to be honored and protected. Otherwise, these places disappear in the march of progress,” he said. “When those places face change or even destruction, the place itself builds an emotional intensity. The feeling grows that something sacred, something deep in our memories, something vital to the community, is being lost.”

Andrew Muylle, a 2013 Eastern High School graduate, said that, despite “a long, tumultuous road of opinions, articles, discussions and disagreement,” he still believes compromise is possible.

Andrew Muylle

“Eastern in its entirety is a massive building. The goal of this coalition has been to work with UM-Sparrow to envision a harmonious site plan that preserves the iconic Pennsylvania Avenue west wing and the John Young auditorium, while still realizing the full potential of the psychiatric facility,” he said.

“Imagine the west wing serving to complement and enhance the extended campus with features like a welcome center, a medical library, admin offices, a number of classrooms for flexible use, short term housing for temporary employees like traveling nurses or medical residents, and an auditorium for professional conferences and cultural use,” he added.

Following the public comment session, which took place at the end of the meeting, Council members did not indicate a position one way or the other.

However, Bell and his peers said they intend to continue pushing back against the proposal.   

“It's not just nostalgia that these people are bringing to you. It's this feeling of something sacred being lost,” he said.