IGNACIO – The Elhi Community Center in Ignacio faces an uncertain future as the building housing the community hub nears the end of its safe architectural life.
The building, which was formerly Ignacio’s joint elementary and high school from 1948 to 2014, became home to the community center in 2015, Ann Salviazul, Elhi executive director, said.
When the community center began leasing the building, an architectural and engineering review was done to evaluate the building’s structure, electrical system and pipes.
“The basic summary of that report was that the building has outlived its useful life,” Salviazul said.
The nearly 80-year-old building was found to have several problems, including mold and asbestos insulation, she said. Unlike other repurposed historical buildings in the area such as Durango’s Smiley Building, it was determined it would be better to demolish and rebuild the Elhi building than to renovate it.
“It will be torn down,” she said. “The question is, ‘When?’”
That puts the building’s current mix of local businesses and nonprofits in a tough spot, she said. Those tenants could lose their spaces without having anywhere to go. Several of the tenants provide vital youth, health and education resources to rural Ignacio, as well as food assistance and assistance for victims of sexual assault.
Ignacio Town Manager Weylin Ryan said there is currently no set date for the building’s demolition, but he expects it will be torn down within the next two to three years.
In the meantime, he said, Elhi leadership and the town will need community input to assess how to best use the demolished building’s lot and what funding will be required.
“Whatever the final form ends up getting decided on, we're going to need to figure out how to fund it,” Ryan said.
Salviazul said the Elhi board has several plans to ensure the community center’s current services remain available to the community.
Plan A is for the center to partner with the town to build another building on the same property before the existing one is torn down, which would keep all current services together. Plan B is to collaborate with the town to move the center’s tenants to a different town-owned site. Plan C, she said, is where the Elhi independently finds land to construct its own new building.
“What I'm trying to do is just queue up opportunities (and) build the relationships so that when we figure out which way we have to pivot, we can do so really quickly,” Salviazul said.
Ideally, she said, a new community center building would be bigger and able to house more tenants. That way, more valuable services will be available to Ignacio residents who cannot always access those resources – particularly mental healthcare.
“A bigger building with more services would really, really strengthen this community,” she said.
Ryan agreed, saying the building and its tenants have proven to be very beneficial to the community.
“The building has been an amazing service to the community at large since it was originally designed and built,” he said.
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
