Chinquapin School will be demolished
By Bonnie Edwards
Published in News on March 11, 2004 2:01 PM
KENANSVILLE -- The Duplin County commissioners have decided to demolish the Omega Building near Rose Hill and the old Chinquapin School.
The board agreed to let Harkins Enterprise tear down the Omega Building for $34,000. Harkins also said it could tear down the old school for $93,500.
Commissioner Arliss Albertson said the county should see if William Brooks Construction Co. could do the work for less, and the board agreed to move forward on the demolition at a price not to exceed $93,500. Commissioner L.S Guy, former school superintendent, said the county is not required to go through a bidding process for demolition work.
Commissioner Larry Howard was the only dissenter on the vote. He said the county could save the demolition cost by giving the old school building away. "We could have sold it for $1 and saved $93,000," he said. "We could have let the new owner tear it down or do whatever he wanted to with it."
Guy said the old Chinquapin School was given to the county, because there was no local government to take it.
County Manager Fred Eldridge said Harkins is finishing a job in Jones County and wants to move the equipment immediately to Omega. "You pay them nothing until the job is completed," he said.
The company wants to do both of the jobs at the same time. Harkins expects it to take a total of nine months to do both buildings.
The company does "a good job of scrounging whatever they can" out of a building, Eldridge said. The Omega Building is made of steel, iron, some wood and some brick, and it has some kitchen materials to salvage.
The problem is the old school was built mostly of cinder block, with steel window frames and a metal roof -- not much wood to be salvaged to keep the cost down.
Albertson said two people approached him last week about taking some of the materials. One person wanted the bricks.