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Deal for Sixth Street School demolition?

Kane County may soon be free to knock down the former Sixth Street School in Geneva, as long as it compensates the city of Geneva for the intangible loss of a historic structure.

The city's preservation planner, Michael Lambert, shared the news with the Historic Preservation Commission Tuesday.

“It sounds like a straight-up horse trade,” Commissioner Nanette Andersson said.

In February, the commission denied a demolition permit for the building at 210 S. Sixth St. Demolition of structures in the city's nationally-registered historic district require the commission's approval.

The city council overturned the decision.

But the application also had to be reviewed by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, because the city is an official local historic preservation agency under state law. It said it was premature to demolish the building, because it found the building eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The county was required to submit a mitigation plan to the state.

The county had several options from which to choose:

• Hiring a firm to do measured drawings and photographs of the site, and install a permanent exhibit about the school at whatever building or project replaces it;

• Keeping the building;

• Adapting it for another use, or incorporating it into another use; or

• Making up the loss to the city.

The state cannot compel an owner to put a building on the National Register of Historic Places, Lambert said.

As compensation, Kane County will hire a firm to do a survey of the city's historic district, Lambert said. The survey will show changes to buildings, including additions and demolitions. Portions of the district were enacted in 1979 and 1982. A survey is on Lambert's to-do list.

County officials could not be reached for comment Thursday. A spokesman for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency said the agreement has not been finalized so he could not discuss the details.

The county is selling the site to the Geneva Public Library district. The library board is considering building a new library on it and is paying part of the demolition cost.

The school was built in 1924. Two additions were made in 1938 and 1939. The library district bought it in the early 1980s, then sold it to Kane County in 1989. It houses the Kane County Regional Office of Education.

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