Blaze can't douse hopes of those who want to save it
July 31, 2007
A three-alarm fire that tore through part of the old Cass Technical High School in Detroit on Monday won't hurt efforts to revitalize the historic building, preservationists say.
Firefighters and Detroit Public Schools officials were still assessing the extent of the damage late Monday, but initial indications showed the fire damage was confined to a first-floor office and what a school official described as an air duct that runs up one side of the building.
Francis Grunow, executive director of Preservation Wayne and a 1992 Cass Tech graduate, said that the damage was not severe enough to sidetrack revitalization efforts. Alumni are examining the possibility of converting the 7-story high school, which opened in 1922 and closed in 2005, into lofts and apartments.
"While this is a setback, it doesn't mean our plans won't move forward to reuse the building," he said. "In the context of what would have needed to be done anyway, it's not that significant."
Two firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation.
The fire is considered suspicious and is under arson investigation, said Detroit Fire Lt. Orlando Gregory.
Shortly before it began, officers from the Detroit Public Schools' police agency arrested two people for trespassing in the building, said DPS spokeswoman Mattie Majors. Initially, those officers said a third person escaped and may have started the fire. But Majors said that officers later were less sure about that scenario.
The men in the school were vagrants, she said, and got in despite the school being boarded up.
The blaze, which began around 12:15 p.m. on the first floor and took several hours to contain, reached up to at least the sixth floor of the old school, fire officials said. At its peak, flames and smoke were visible from the fifth and sixth floors of the stone and brick building as firefighters pumped a steady stream of water into a fourth-story window.
Officials have not completed a damage estimate yet, but early signs point to the building not being a total loss, Majors said.
Darlene Romero, manager of the Berwin Apartments across Henry Street from the school, said the men who were arrested appeared to have been scavenging the building and were throwing pipes and other materials out of a window.
"Shortly after they left," Romero said of the police who arrested the suspects, "that's when the fire started."
Romero said that the neighborhood has been experiencing problems with vagrants.
The sight of the burning school was painful for one onlooker, Charles Alexander, a 1955 graduate and a former administrator with the Detroit Public Schools.
"This is a moment that is tinged with sadness," he said.
Earlier this year, district officials removed paperwork and equipment that had been in storage at the building, Majors said.
Contact ZACHARY GORCHOWat 313-223-4536 or zgorchow@freepress.com.
Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.