Cooper condemned; partial collapse closes Lloyd, Lehigh streets

SHENANDOAH – The effort to save a Shenandoah landmark was dealt a massive setback Saturday as part of the building collapsed into Lehigh Street.

Borough officials condemned the former J.W. Cooper Memorial High School building and closed Lloyd Street at White Street, and Lehigh Street at Lloyd Street.

Bricks littered the Lehigh Street alleyway as part of the rear of the building collapsed.

Mark Pronio, code enforcement officer, told the Sentinel he met Saturday afternoon with the building’s owner, Kent Steinmetz, and another meeting is set for later in the week.

The building houses the J.W. Cooper Community Center, and more notably, the Beverly Mattson Memorial Food Bank, the primary food pantry in the Shenandoah Valley.

Pronio said efforts are underway to find an alternate location for the food bank, and said Steinmetz has been “extremely cooperative.”

“He realizes his responsibility, and as a borough, we realize how many people rely on that building, not just for supplemental food, but for their food,” Pronio said.

Steinmetz told the Sentinel that the food bank serves at least 3,000 families in the area. He said a structural engineer will be brought in to determine the building’s structural stability and determine the next steps.

“We’re brainstorming right now,” he said.

Steinmetz has been working to save the building since he purchased it in 2009. He had plans to turn it into a regional hub of activities and briefly operated a jewelry store inside.

For about 15 years prior, the building sat abandoned and in disrepair.

It has a storied history. Built to be the central high school for the Shenandoah Borough School District in 1918, it was first pressed into service as a makeshift hospital during the Spanish Flu pandemic.

In 1927, it was named in memory of Professor Jonathan Wilkinson Cooper, a beloved superintendent of borough schools.

For several years in the 1940s, a mine subsidence forced the building’s closure and lengthy structural repairs.

It eventually reopened to students, and scores of Shenandoah pupils graduated from the Cooper building until it was replaced by the current Jr./Sr. High on West Centre Street in 1981.

Neighborhood elementary schools were consolidated into the Cooper building for the next 13 years before the current elementary center was built at the West Centre campus.

The massive building then sat abandoned until Steinmetz purchased it in 2009 and began renovation work, assisted by volunteers and alumni.

Several setbacks, including a demanded retrofit to install an elevator to comply with ADA guidelines, slowed progress but efforts continued.

Just last week, a fundraiser was launched for the effort in memory of the valedictorian of the Class of 1952.

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Kaylee Lindenmuth

Kaylee Lindenmuth is a Shenandoah native with a passion for journalism and the community she calls home.

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