County officials presented yesterday plans to secure $4.3 million in seed money to begin renovating the historic Wiley H. Bates school in Annapolis.
Anne Arundel County is planning to contribute $2 million toward the costs of asbestos removal and preliminary design, Central Services Officer Jerome W. Klasmeier told the Planning Advisory Board.
Another $2 million would come from the General Assembly. A bill has been submitted at the request of County Executive John G. Gary, who promised at a Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration last month that he would push for completing the renovation of what was the city's only high school for blacks.
A hearing on the bill is scheduled for March 6 before the House Appropriations Committee.
The renovation of the Bates school, which will cost $8 million to $10 million according to preliminary estimates, might include 100 apartments for senior citizens that would be built and operated by a private developer.
The renovated school also would include a county-run senior center and a community center financed by the nonprofit Bates Foundation, which has worked for more than a decade to save the school.
Mr. Klasmeier said the complex will include "an appropriate memorial," as yet undetermined, to Mr. Bates, a merchant and Annapolis City Council member who provided the land on Smithfield Street for the school. He died in 1935.
A controversial proposal to build townhouses on the grassy fields behind the school, which was blocked by the City Council, has been removed. Instead, the land will be used for ball fields NTC and open space, toward which the city is expected to contribute $300,000.
The high school opened in 1933 and closed in 1966, when integration was completed in county schools. Attempts to renovate the rapidly deteriorating building have been marked in the past by disputes over how the old building should be used.
Various community groups have proposed such uses as a conference center, a schooling center for drug-addicted mothers and a senior citizens center.
The city, county and state all have an interest in the project. The county owns the property, it lies within the city limits, and the state holds outstanding bonds on the building.
Mr. Klasmeier worked on putting together a renovation plan during the administration of County Executive Robert R. Neall. For the past 18 months, Mr. Klasmeier said, he has met regularly with a development team made up of county, city and state officials to arrive at a workable plan.
For the past seven months, that team has been joined by a citizens advisory committee.
"I am optimistic, and I wasn't always," Mr. Klasmeier told the planning board, which advises Mr. Gary on the capital budget. Committee meetings were often contentious, he said, with people in various camps expressing strong opinions on what should be done with the property. "But everyone seems to be with the program now, and I'm optimistic we're going to get this done," he said.
"Bates is coming together, and it's like a dream come true," said Jean Creek, president of the Bates Foundation.
Ms. Creek gave much of the credit to Mr. Gary. "John Gary's input in the process made it happen," she said. "The irony of it is, Bates stood still under liberal Democrats for eight years, and John Gary, who happens to be a conservative Republican, really put the muscle behind the project."
Bates High School is a powerful symbol for Annapolis' black community.
Joyce McManus, a planning board member and former teacher, recalled teaching at the Bates school when she first came to Annapolis in 1956.
"I wasn't a student there, but I sure did teach a lot of them," Ms. McManus said. "It means a lot to me."
The school was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in July, four years after an application was filed by the Bates Foundation.
"It was that, actually, that thwarted any attempts to tear down portions of the building," Ms. Creek said.