Healthy progress | Opinion | The Journal Gazette

In terms of saving a 90-year-old building, seven months wasn’t a long time to hold off on demolition plans for the former Ward Elementary School. Fort Wayne Community Schools’ decision to wait on a redevelopment plan for the vacant building appears to have paid off for taxpayers and the neighborhood.

Monday, the school board unanimously approved transfer of the former L.C. Ward Education Center to Neighborhood Health, which plans to repurpose the building for health care and education programs. The offices at 3501 Warsaw St. will expand services at Neighborhood Health’s main clinic at 1717 S. Calhoun St. and 3350 E. Paulding Road. Neighborhood Health also offers services for eligible women, infants and children at sites in DeKalb and Noble counties.

There are still some legal ends to tie up before the building’s future is secure, but bringing health care services to an underserved area is, in itself, a worthy end. So is preservation of a historic structure. Donita Mudd, a southeast Fort Wayne business owner, was one of the area residents who rallied to save the building when she saw a demolition notice in The Journal Gazette’s legal ads.

“Southeast Fort Wayne has so many vacant lots,” she said last year. “If they tear it down, that’s what we’re going to end up with.”

The school district was prepared to spend nearly $250,000 to tear the school down. Preserving it for use by Neighborhood Health avoids risk of another vacant lot and provides the opportunity to include some uses beyond the medical, dental, vision and behavioral health care Neighborhood Health has planned. Pharmacy services and a healthy food resource are options.

Here’s hoping the last hurdles are overcome and the former school will enjoy new life and purpose in its next 90 years.