By Shannon McFarlin News Director
Paris, Tenn.–Due to structural issues at the historic Grove Tower, its staff must “temporaily relocate as soon as possible”.
Director of Henry County Schools Dr. Leah Watkins has distributed an email informing staff of an imminent move to space at Henry County High School. “It breaks my heart to leave this incredible building, but it’s a temporary move and we’re going to figure out a path forward.”
Grove Tower, which was built in 1906, now houses the central and administrative offices for Henry County Schools. The Romanesque, Classical Revival structure is on the National Register of Historic Places and originally was the home of Grove High School. Grove High closed in 1969 and was replaced with Henry County High School when schools in the county were consolidated.
Watkins said the current situation evolved at a pre-bid meeting to replace the roof on the structure. “We’ve needed a new roof for a long time and we have money set aside for that and we were having the pre-bid meeting,” she said. “And a couple of the contractors told us they couldn’t bid on the project until the structure was evaluated.”
The strong wind storm about a month ago caused more damage, she said. “We all noted a significant movement in the truss system. We called in a structural engineer who looked at it preliminarily on Friday and he told us we needed to get out.”
Watkins said it was decided that staff needed to relocate ‘as soon as possible’ while awaiting a formal structural evaluation that will “give us a better understanding of what is needed.”
It’s a difficult thing to do, she said. “We love Grove Tower. It’s a beautiful symbol of Henry County and we want to take care of it. Safety of the staff and the building comes first and we need to step away from it while the evaluation is going on.”
The formal structural evaluation “will evaluate the building from top to bottom. We’re anticipating that they will give us a stabilization plan to keep it from getting worse and to give us guidance on how to improve the structure.”
Dr. Watkins spent the weekend evaluating other structures and the decision was made to relocate Grove Tower staff (some 25-28 employees) to the high school. “We’re working through the details on where in the building we’l be right now. Parking will be one of our biggest problems because parking is at a premium at the high school.”
There is no timeline for how long the relocation will last, she said. “We don’t know if it’s three months, six months, a year. We won’t know that until we get the structural evaluation. We’re proud of Grove Tower and love this building. We want to maintain it as best we can.”
Photo by Shannon McFarlin.