Cooper to come down, says owner
Plans finalized over weekend
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL - Kent Steinmetz, owner of the J.W. Cooper building, looks over the largely emptied auditorium on April 15, 2024.
SHENANDOAH – Its halls educated thousands here. It housed one of, if not the, first school pools in Schuylkill County. Monday, the auditorium seats are in pieces, ripped out in preparation for its demise.
The former J.W. Cooper Memorial High School at White and Lloyd Street is coming down, owner Kent Steinmetz confirmed to the Sentinel.
He said that plans came together recently, and were not yet finalized Friday when neighborhood demolition rumors were broadcast on television.
Steinmetz, of the Schuylkill Haven area, said saving the building is no longer financially feasible. He had been trying since 2009, fighting an uphill battle after previous owners Lynda and Lewis Eyster let the building sit vacant for 15 years. The Eysters purchased the building from the school district shortly after its closure in 1994.
The building suffered a partial collapse about three weeks ago and was promptly condemned by borough code enforcement.
Steinmetz said the situation had been “emotionally hard” but he has accepted it.
Mark Pronio, code enforcement officer, told the Sentinel that Steinmetz had been cooperative and, while he did not know the full details, he said “it looks to me like demolition is imminent.”
He said no one has applied for a demolition permit yet.
Steinmetz said he is transferring the property to Dwight Williams, owner of Trendsetters Investments, LLC, who was at the site Monday working on preparations for demolition.
The building had recently been home to Shenandoah’s food bank and Steinmetz said they will find another building in town and come back stronger than before.
Steinmetz bought the historic school in 2009 with plans to turn it into a regional hub of activities and briefly operated a jewelry store inside.
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.
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