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Schools

School will change their lives

Members of a tight-knit neighborhood around N Levis Avenue will scatter when their homes are razed to make way for a new elementary school.

By ROBIN STEIN
Published May 20, 2006

TARPON SPRINGS - Before Thursday, Thelma and Paul Davis were living happily ever after in their boxy ranch on Spruce Street.

"We have a nice piece of land here, a little paradise," said Mrs. Davis. "I've lived here for 38 years. I'm 74."

Then, with a single phone call, the life they've known, the future they've pictured, faded away.

On the phone was Jim Miller, director of real property management for the Pinellas County School District. Their house, he said, is among six the district needs to acquire for a new Tarpon Springs Elementary School, which will be built adjacent to the school's current campus.

A state certified property appraiser will determine their home's market value, Miller said. Construction for the new school is scheduled to begin in March.

"It's quite a bombshell," said Mrs. Davis on Friday afternoon. Still reeling, she had not yet managed to get dressed. "At our age it's going to be quite a tragedy for us."

Mrs. Davis said she is worried that she and her husband, 70, won't manage to find something affordable. She also wants to stay close to the Tarpon Springs Police Department so she can still organize the yearly toy drive.

And she keeps thinking about that devastating feeling she had years ago, when she returned to the Nebraska farm where she grew up. "Have you ever moved away from a place and come back to see it leveled?"

The Davises are not the only ones in shock. The news reverberated across the cluster of houses across North Levis Avenue from the schoolyard's western boundary.

"I know the sentiment of being attached to a property. We try to be sensitive to that," Miller said.

After more than 30 years with the school district, Miller said he has delivered a lot of bombshells.

School construction in south St. Petersburg displaced more than 150 homes, he said. He now is negotiating for 19 homes to clear space for a new high school in Largo.

The district does have power to exercise eminent domain, the forcible repossession of private property, Miller said, but rarely uses it. He could recall only two or three instances when a negotiation has failed to find common ground.

The basic idea still seems surreal to Stella and George Himonetos.

On Friday afternoon, workers were buzzing around their back yard at 525 N Levis Ave., erecting framing for a 900-square-foot addition.

"We started construction two or three months ago," said Stella Himonetos, 28. Her husband has taken off work to supervise the project to expand the family room and add a new master suite.

"I haven't even looked back there," she said. "It doesn't interest me because it's just going to be destroyed.

The news has been even more difficult for George Himonetos, 27, who has lived in the house since he was a year old.

"He doesn't believe it's going to happen," she said. "He's in complete denial."

She said George's elderly aunt, Katherine Houllis, who lives next door, also is in shock, devastated by the prospect of leaving the home she's had for more than 40 years. Stella said she and George purchased the house from his mother several years ago. They planned to stay and raise their 4-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, who attends Tarpon Springs Elementary.

When school district officials announced plans for the new school last winter, Himonetos said she was thrilled.

She had been among the group of parents and teachers concerned about the health effects of the recurring breakouts of mold at the existing elementary school.

Reports of sick children and staff members led to the closing of the cafeteria and the library last fall. Nearly 20 of the 600 students transferred, but absentee rates and respiratory complaints continued. Crowding in the school already forced several classrooms into portable trailers scattered through the campus.

Ultimately district officials pushed up plans to replace the 54-year-old school two years earlier than scheduled.

New elementary schools typically require 12 to 15 acres. The school's current site measures only nine.

Preliminary plans for the new school call for the acquisition of 4.5 to 5 acres across N Levis Avenue. The school district also will ask the city to vacate Levis Avenue, Miller said.

The additional land will allow space for the new building with a capacity of 725 students.

During construction, students will use a temporary campus of portables at Tarpon Springs Middle School.

If everything goes as planned, the new school should open for fall semester 2008, said Miller.

And the Davises, the Himonetos family, Karen Satmary and her three children, the whole tight-knit neighborhood, will be long gone.

[Last modified May 20, 2006, 01:58:12]