At some point in the history of the old Brown Shoe Factory, an addition was secured to the west side of the original structure that was built in the 1920s and is now owned by the Mattoon, IL school district.

Over time, the newer section has separated from the main building, peeling away from top to bottom like a loose postage stamp, creating an ever-widening gap in the floor of the third-story hallway.

It could almost serve as an object lesson for earth science students studying plate tectonics and continental drift.

Instead, it has contributed to a larger dilemma for school district officials contemplating how to demolish the old shoe factory — of which only a small portion is in use now — and replace it with a new, smaller structure.

All on a shoestring budget, of course.

“We’ve got issues that are starting to be more frequent, more severe, and more costly,” said Tom Sherman, assistant superintendent of business.

The school district purchased the former Brown Shoe Factory in 1965, according to past newspaper reports.

The building once housed the Neil Armstrong Center, although most of this program was relocated to the Hawthorne School when Mattoon’s two new elementary schools were completed four years ago.

A 30-year-old steel addition to the north side of the old factory serves as the bus garage, while portions of the first floor of the main building are still utilized by the Armstrong Program as well as the district’s food service.

Members of the school board building committee and administrators toured the facility Monday morning, discussing the problems and possible solutions.

Of immediate concern was the yearly drain on district finances. The building generated gas and electric bills to the tune of about $50,000 last year alone, according to Sherman.

Some of these expenses were simply for heating the unoccupied second and third floors to keep the sprinkler pipes from freezing.

The maintenance of the building also requires thousands of dollars each year, Sherman said.

Administrators and building committee members discussed three options:

Keep using the old factory as it is, and continue to fund the utility and maintenance needs, which also include problems with the roof.

Abandon the building entirely (and leave behind a liability concern) after constructing a new bus garage.

Demolish all or most of the old building and build a new facility for transportation and other services.

This last option likely would necessitate the removal of asbestos coating from the large smoke stack north of the main structure, which would carry a price tag of about $170,000 by itself, said officials.

Although board members are nowhere near ready to reach a decision about the factory’s fate, building committee members on Monday were keen on devising a plan for the demolition of the old structure and construction of a new bus garage, but without extra spending.

In other words, board members and administrators speculated the savings from not having to heat and repair the former factory could fund the new facility, in tandem with the continued diversion of money tentatively earmarked for district-wide summer maintenance projects.

Ideally, the demolition and new construction would take three to five years, said officials.

At last week’s regular board meeting, board members approved this summer’s project — which normally calls for $300,000 or more — for less than $150,000. The remaining $150,000 will be applied to the heating and air-conditioning project at the middle school, which is about $300,000 overbudget, said Superintendent Larry Lilly.

The full school board will discuss these issues at future meetings

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