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Venerable school will fall

A ceremony will honor the past and the future.

By ELISABETH DYER, Times Staff Writer
Published November 23, 2007

DOWNTOWN 

First will come sweet memories of a school where decades of African-American children learned to read in classrooms and to roller skate on the playground.

Then a backhoe will plow into the brick Meacham school.

After more than two years of debate about its fate, the historic school will be demolished next Friday after a ceremony remembering its namesake.

Ushering in Meacham's last days, the Tampa Housing Authority finalized its purchase of the 1926 school last week from the school district for nearly $1.3-million. The building, central to what had been Central Park Village, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2005.

But it didn't fit into a 30-acre redevelopment project, which the authority, in a partnership with Bank of America, hopes to develop into about 2,030 mixed-income rental units and market-rate condominiums.

City Council chairwoman Gwen Miller, who will speak at the ceremony, had hoped the school would be moved to a new site.

"It's going to be a sad day," said Miller, who interned in Meacham's fourth-grade class to become a teacher in 1957.

"Meacham was a neighborhood school. Teachers, if they needed to contact the parents, they were right there. And kids knew their parents would be right there, so there were never any problems."

Plans call for the land where the schoolhouse stood to become part of Town Square. A main entrance would be named for Ray Charles, who once sang here, and bordered with restaurants and stores, including a grocery. In the center of the two-lane boulevardwould sit a lush green linear park with gathering spots, water features and historic markers, including one for the school written by Christina Meacham's descendants.

But plans to pay for the project are now uncertain. Originally, Bank of America agreed to buy the school and two other parcels totaling less than 2 acres. But the bank balked after a ruling in Strand vs. Escambia County in September stated that local governments must have a city referendum to back tax-increment financing for revitalization projects,said Leroy Moore, chief operating officer of the Tampa Housing Authority.

The plan had been to get a loan backed by the city that would be repaid through future taxes reaped from the project.

The housing authority proceeded with buying the Meacham site anyway.

"The bank was not moving ahead with the acquisition of the school site, so the housing authority stepped in and bought the school," Moore said.

Now the authority owns the entire 29.5-acre Town Square site. In the worst-case scenario, Moore said, if the court ruling stands and voters don't support the project, the authority would need to find other funding. Storm drains, parking and city roads will cost about $30-million, he said.

The bank remains committed to the project, said Roxanne Amoroso, senior vice president of Bank of America Community Development Corp.

In addition to the purchase of the Meacham building, the authority and the school district swapped land. The district traded the 1-acre site where Meacham sits for 2 acres north of Scott Street that the authority owned. The district plans to build the Christina A. Meacham Middle School on that site.

"Miss Tina," as the school's namesake was known, served as principal of Harlem Academy, the first black school in Tampa. The school took her name after she died in 1927, when it was a year old.

Students at Meacham - the descendants of freed slaves who settled the area known as the Scrub in the late 1800s - learned to climb the social ladder through education. By 1945, Meacham was the largest black school in Hillsborough, with 420 students.

Through the years, the school served as an early childhood center and most recently a last chance for troubled high school students.

Elisabeth Dyer can be reached at edyer@sptimes.com or 813 226-3321.

If you go

The ceremony

The Meacham school demolition ceremony is 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. next Friday at 1225 India St. Speakers will include Christina Meacham's great-grandchildren and City Council chairwoman Gwen Miller, who did her teaching internship at Meacham. Immediately after the ceremony, demolition will start.

[Last modified November 21, 2007, 08:08:02]