- August 27, 2024
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The old county courthouse building in Bunnell. Photo by Sierra Williams
The Flagler School Board's proposed layout for the historic courthouse building's first floor. Image from Flagler School Board meeting documents
The Flagler School Board's proposed layout for the historic courthouse building's second floor. Image from Flagler School Board meeting documents
The Flagler School Board's proposed layout for the historic courthouse building's third floor. Image from Flagler School Board meeting documents
The Flagler School Board is looking to assume a 10-year lease of Flagler County’s historic courthouse building in Bunnell this fall.
The building is owned by Flagler County, and is currently leased to the First Baptist Christian Academy. The Christian Academy, however, is moving out of the building into its new home at Pine Lakes and Palm Coast Parkways, next to its church.
Built in 1927, the old courthouse building — located at 201 E. Moody Boulevard in Bunnell — served as the county’s courthouse until 1982 when cracks formed in its foundation. Now that the building is emptying from the Christian Academy, the board would like to use the space to help make room at the county's schools.
But the Flagler County Historical Society was also making plans for the building. Taking from the ideas of a similar historical courthouses in Polk County that was turned into a museum, Historical Society President Ed Siarkowicz told the board the Society’s intent was education.
“All of us in Historical Society are focused on telling the life stories, the survival skills, of the people that made it here,” he said, “and turning that into educational experiences for children and their parents and families.”
Siarkowicz said that the Historical Society’s members originally understood the lease wouldn’t be available until May 2025. Now, know the building will be empty by the end of August, Siarkowicz said the Society is hoping to partner with the School Board to feature historical displays along the ground floor, instead of fighting with the board for the full lease of the building.
The issue becomes a matter of security, several members of the board said, as well as finding a way to mesh two ideas.
The School Board is hoping to use the additional space at the courthouse for some of its auxiliary programs.
If the lease goes through and is obtained, the board plans to use it for the following programs: Rise Up, an alternative school at Flagler Palm Coast High School; the administration and teachers for iFlagler, the county’s virtual public school program; federal programs; TRAIL, a vocational transitional program for 18-22-year-olds with disabilities; storage the Education Foundation’s Stuff Bus; and Step Up, a life skills education program for adults with special needs.
Right now, Superintendent LaShakia Moore said, there has been no official action taken on the lease. Dave Freeman, chief of Operational Services at Flagler Schools, said that staff has discussed the proposal with the county and they are “exploring options” to possibly purchase the building.
“The county has told me they have no use for the building,” Freeman said. “…I got the feeling from the county that all options are on the table.”
School Board Chair Will Furry said he was cautious to jump into owning a historical building. It isn’t like owning a modern one, he said.
“My concern is we may, we may find ourselves in the same position as the county, [where] we have no more use for this building, because our needs have changed,” Furry said.
The plans would require some remodeling work. Between design costs and inside and outside construction, the project would total $632,000, according to School Board meeting documents. Rent and utilities combined would costs $212,000 each year.
If the board takes over the lease in September, a timeline of the project places construction beginning in October and moving into the facilities between December and January.
The society has been working on a proposal for the courthouse building for over a year. In 2023, Siarkowicz said commissioner Leann Pennington originally reached out to the Historical Society and asked the group to put together a proposal for the building, once it emptied.
But the advanced timeline is too much soon for the Historical Society to turn around a proposal in time, he said. Instead, the group would like to take up some of the space on the ground floor, if the School Board obtains the lease.
The Historical Society, Siarkowicz said, is asking for seven rooms in the ground floor space. In that space, it plans to place multiple historical displays about Flagler County’s history, ranging from a timeline of the county, a display on the county’s agricultural history, and a history of the county’s schools, cities and the courthouse itself, among others.
Additionally, he said, the vaults on the floor could be used as storage for some of the society’s records and items.
The displays would be open to tours, he said, but they felt allowing the public open access to the space was “not an option.”
Siarkowicz proposed the same measures the Historical Society’s Little Red Schoolhouse Museum tours have at Bunnell Elementary School: background checks of all in the tour would be mandatory and everyone must present identification.
The rooms would be at the very front of the building on the ground floor, separated from the rest by a long hallway that connects the north and south entrances on the building’s west side, according to the floor plan.
“As far as a collaboration between the Historical Society and the School Board,” Siarkowicz said, “education is our primary role.”
School board member Colleen Conklin said she would fully support integrating the Historical Society’s plan into the School Board’s proposal. Other members were less convinced — Furry called the Historical Society’s requests “ambitious.”
“I think this is a wonderful proposal,” he said. “I think it’s a bit ambitious.”
The board would also need to work out how to restrict the access of the suggested historical tours, as well as address other possible security concerns.
Conklin pointed out that many people come and go from the schools as it is — this would not be much different.
For now, the board members gave Moore the direction to begin serious discussions with the county on moving forward with the lease proposal. As for the Historical Society, the board also agreed to discuss its options with them, too, to see about incorporating the Society’s requests.
