TYNGSBORO – Twenty years ago, the last students left the Winslow School. The white clapboard building overlooking Middlesex Road has been vacant since 2002, and its condition deteriorates more with each passing year.
“It is disintegrating before our eyes,” said Select Board Chair Ron Keohane at the recent Select Board meeting, when the topic of the building’s future surfaced again.
Board members agreed to form a committee that would have a recommendation for the spring town meeting on whether to save the building or demolish it.
Demolishing the building while finding a way to preserve its memory was the option the board appeared most interested in.
“It (the 5.2 acres of land on which the school sits) is critical space for our town center. Do we want to move forward and figure out what we want to do with a very critical piece of property? We only have one shot at building a town center, the way I see it. And it’s that 5 acres,” Keohane said.
The town has engaged in a multi-year effort to showcase its historic center. Old Town Hall on Kendall Road has been restored and offers space for large groups. The First Parish Church was completed last year and is being marketed as a wedding venue.
Cleaned and repaired veterans’ memorials will provide a focus for the small park on Winslow Road in front of the school and the Littlefield library. Earlier this year, Community Preservation funds and a grant from the state were allocated to the development of walking trails on property behind the school.
For Board Member Mike Moran, the town “has an opportunity to create new memories for a new generation” by creating a town center.
Along with the Littlefield Library next door, the Winslow School is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1890 with funding provided by Sara Tyng Winslow and designed by F.H. Bacon. It was originally located nearer the Evangelical Congregational Church on Kendall Road, and it was enlarged in 1915. The school was moved to its present hillside location in 1940.
Possibilities for the school’s future were last discussed in 2018. Five proposals came in. Several called for mixed used development, one was for condominiums in a renovated structure and another called for demolition.
Some in town have proposed restoring the Winslow School and then using it as Town Hall. In 2018, the estimated cost was $13.1 million. The existing Town Hall and library would then be converted to a police station at an estimated 2018 cost of $14.9 million.
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